Merry Christmas!

Hit or Miss: Crippled Pilgrims

With a name like Crippled Pilgrims, it has to be good!

Perhaps, just as in the classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch that riffs on the longtime Smucker's advertising slogan ("With a name like Smucker's it has to be good!") with products such as "Painful Rectal Itch," "Nose Hair" and "Death Camp," early '80s D.C. band Crippled Pilgrims figured using a somewhat offensive-sounding name might distinguish them from the crowd.

They certainly sounded different from the artists that were topping the charts in 1984, such as Prince and The Revolution, Tina Turner, Culture Club and Lionel Richie. But they also were out of step with the well-known hardcore bands in their hometown, including Minor Threat, Bad Brains and Government Issue.

Sometimes jangly like contemporaries R.E.M., other times all guitar wanky like Television and yet also known to veer into psychedelia like The Dream Syndicate, singer-guitarist Jay Moglia, bassist Mitch Parker, guitarist Scott Wingo and drummer Dan Joseph put out only one EP and one full-length album in their brief career.

I had never heard of them before flipping through records one day at my favorite record store, Capitol Records (R.I.P.) in Hartford, back in the mid-'80s. The record jacket for Head Down - Hand Out is simple, but the bold lines and lowercase script caught my eye. As with other albums I picked out completely at random -- and which I've written about here and here -- I simply decided the album looked interesting, and I hoped for a return on my investment.

And I wasn't disappointed, especially with Wingo's fretwork.

"Black and White," Head Down -- Hand Out's opener, sets the tone, as Wingo pours forth a hypnotic lead before Moglia can open his mouth. The lyrics aren't all that deep, despite Moglia's serious tone: "When you don't see right / and you're off the track / when you don't see white / you don't see black." But I've never been a guy to care too much about lyrical content, as long as the music holds my attention.

And I'll admit that if Wingo's leads throughout "Black and White" and the band's entire catalog didn't sparkle so much, I wouldn't be writing about Crippled PIlgrims. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying Crippled Pilgrims is on par with Television, or other noodle-heavy bands such as Dinosaur Jr. or Built to Spill.

But Wingo's (do you suppose people made fun of his name because of this?) fluid leads and noodling entice the listener and hint at darkness and mystery.

The second track, "Under the Ladder," is much mellower and more folk-rocky. It's in the same vein as Transformer's "You're Everywhere That I'm Not."

On "People Going Nowhere" the band gets a little bit funky -- but not too much, 'cuz they don't wanna confuse those college boys -- but once again it's Wingo's guitar flavorings throughout that drive the song.

"Out of Hand" is Wingo's biggest showcase. His fretwork is never showy (wow, when I started writing this, I didn't realize it was going to turn into a love letter to Scott Wingo). I like Wingo's licks because they don't seem all that difficult, although I'm sure they're more intricate than I realize. As someone who's played guitar for more than 30 years but never evolved beyond a good rhythm player who can play only the most basic leads, I appreciate guitar work that sounds as though if I practiced regularly, I could copy it.

"Dissolving" is another moody, somewhat downbeat song that, like all the songs on this EP, echoed my late-teen/early-20 angst about girls, college, the future, trying to figure out who I was, etc.

The mini-album wraps up with "A Side He'll Never Show," on which Wingo shines for the last minute or so, while Moglia plaintively wails, "It's just a side you will never show," a line that validated my own shyness and unwillingness to share too many details of my private life (traits that carry through to this day, although to a lesser degree).

I'll admit that all these years later the album doesn't work for me as well as it did when I bought it. Part of the reason I liked the album (and the subsequent Under Water) was that nobody else knew about them or cared. I lived in Connecticut and went to college in New Hampshire, far from Crippled Pilgrims' home base in the D.C. area.

I still listen to Head Down -- Hand Out and Under Water, perhaps more for nostalgia's sake these days, than for how much the music moves me. But still, I score this one a hit.

I couldn't locate any videos from the EP, but here's "Down Here" from the full length.



And here's a song by Rambling Shadows, which features Wingo and Moglia, along with a former member of Velvet Monkeys. The music is less subtle than the Pilgrims, fer sure. OK, they're a bar band, and Wingo's solos don't shine like they used to. But here it is anyway.

"Gold Rush"

While flying to Florida two weeks ago on the way to Disney World (see December 9, 2011, "Disney Whirl"), I got hooked on the Discovery Channel's "Gold Rush."

JetBlue has TVs on the back of each and every headrest, with a good selection of channels, ranging from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network for the kids, to HGTV, History, Discovery, VH1 Classic and all the networks for adults. So much for reading my National Geographic.

So after flipping around, I settled on "Gold Rush," which follows three groups of guys trying to strike it rich by mining for gold in Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory. This is the second season. In the first season, just one group was featured, and they lost a LOT of money during the course of the 150-day mining season.

This season, the original group, led by the father and son team of Jack and Todd Hoffman, is back, but they failed to make a payment on season one's claim (the land where they mine), so they lost the site to the awesomely monikered "Dakota" Fred Hurt. The third crew is led by 17-year-old (16 when the season started) Parker Schnabel, who is trying to resuscitate his grandfather's mine.

The Hoffman crew buys a new claim 600 miles north of their original site, putting them in the Canadian Yukon. From the few shows I've seen, I can tell you that the Hoffmans are clueless. They make broad statements about where they'll find gold, based not on previous experience, or geological knowledge, but simply on hope alone. They've got a big crew and they bicker about all sorts of things, and end up in lots of predicaments that make for good TV.

As for "Dakota" Fred, he's a gruff straight shooter who takes pride in the fact that he was able to take over the Hoffmans' old claim. But he's no perfect gold miner. He spends a lot of money on equipment and then lots of time trying to figure out how to get it to work. Not that it's easy to dig massive amounts of dirt and rocks, feed it onto a washer and get just the right angle to send water one way, big boulders another way, and miniscule gold flakes and tiny nuggets into the right spot where you can collect them.

Fred is entertaining, but Parker Schnabel is the one I root for, as do most viewers, I imagine. He's a smart, personable kid who's willing to work hard. His grandfather, who the show claims is 91 but who looks to be 15 years younger, appears on occasion to consult with Parker or give him encouragement.

I realize that this show, like just about every other reality show, is scripted at least in part, and that the participants are getting money to be on the show, and probably to cover at least some of their expenses. Still, just as I was once fascinated by how the contestants on "The Apprentice" were able to marshal their business instincts in a very short period of time to create a viable enterprise, and how I currently marvel at how the artists on "Work of Art" can within a 24-hour period manage to gather materials, plan out a project and make it gallery-worthy, I love watching the guys on "Gold Rush" hoisting 30,000 pound machinery while trying not to kill themselves, and figuring out to defeat the permafrost that keeps making their rigs slide to and fro.

While I'm eager to see which of the mining teams will pan out as the winner, I have to say I find it disconcerting just how much these guys have to destroy the environment in order to find mere ounces of gold. I take some solace in the fact that the show demonstrates that previous mining sites have been shown to recover.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go catch up on some back episodes.

Disney Whirl

Walt Disney is the Love God!

I took lots of pictures on our trip to Disney World last weekend, but I find this one to be the most amazing. In a surprise twist, I managed to shed my ironic detachment while at the happiest place on Earth (good... the detachment still works) with Beth and the kids. I'd long dreaded going there, because I thought it would all just be too cheesy and artificial. And, sure, it was, but nobody does cheesy and artificial like the Mousketeers.

We went because Beth received a VIP pass to the park because (name of workplace redacted) has a business relationship with Disney. We flew down last Thursday, and got back late Monday afternoon. We spent three days amid the Mouse-attired masses, and had a fantastic time.

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom on Friday under incredible blue skies, with temps in the mid 70s.



Joining the throngs, we hit Main Street, heading toward the castle. The crowds were bigger than I'd expected -- guidebooks told us that early December is generally somewhat quiet, but we were there during the taping for Disney's Christmas special. There were tons of people in front of the castle listening to "American Idol" winner Scott McCreery singing Christmas tunes in that incredible bass voice of his (I don't like his music, but you can't deny the guy's voice is sumthin' else).

We headed into Tomorrowland, per Owen's request. My got on the People Mover, to get the lay of the land. We did a few rides here, including Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (which Owen loved so much he worked VERY hard to convince Amelia to do it) and the Speedway.

From there, it was a whirlwind -- the Mad Hatter tea cups, the Magic Carpet Ride, the Haunted House, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain (roller coaster), Splash Mountain again, lunch, back to Tomorrowland and stuff I'm definitely forgetting. We had dinner back at the hotel and then chilled in our room after a long, happy day.

The next day we went back to the Magic Kingdom in the morning, doing many of the same rides, and adding in It's a Small World (all of us) and the Dumbo the Flying Elephant (Amelia and Beth), and other stuff that I'm forgetting. After chilling back at our hotel (which was in the park and accessible by monorail -- which Owen LOVED), we went to Epcot in the middle of the afternoon.



The highlight of Epcot, and our entire Disney experience, was Soarin', a ride that simulates a hang glider flight over the state of California. We waited for an hour to get in, and there were a few times when I thought we were going to have to bail, but the kids soldiered on and it was obviously worth it.

I won't bore you with all the other stuff we did there, but I will mention that going inside Spaceship Earth is worth it, and Beth and Owen had a great time on the Test Track (while Amelia and I ate ice cream).



On Sunday we went to the Animal Kingdom, which provided yet more terrific rides. The Dinosaur ride was loud, bumpy and a bit too crazy for Amelia (she covered her ears the whole time); the Kali River Rapids was a quick, yet very wet (for Beth and Amelia) ride; and the safari was much better than I was expecting.



I couldn't convince Owen to do Expedition Everest, the largest roller coaster at Disney.



He didn't want to do Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, either. No big deal. Next time.

It was at Animal Kingdom that the kids finally got to meet some of the characters, including Goofy, Mickey and Minnie. Here they are with Minnie:



Later in the day, we returned to the Magic Kingdom for our final few hours of Disney. Had we realized the park was closing at 7:00 -- the Disney Christmas party, under a separate admission, was running from 7:00 until midnight -- we probably would have gotten there sooner than 4:15. Anyway, we ran a quick loop around the park doing a few more favorites and then headed back to the hotel for room service.

And that's it. The next morning, we ate breakfast, packed up and headed to the airport. The flight back went smoothly, unlike our trip south, which was delayed an hour and 40 minutes. It's good to be back home, even if the temps have finally dipped from the abnormal 60s we'd been experiencing in New England down to the normal 20s, 30s and 40s.

Finally, I just want to delve a little bit into the history of Disney World. I'm the kind of guy who appreciates a massive amusement megaplex like Disney for the rides and entertainment and food, but can't help thinking about how it all got put together, how it's run behind the scenes and what the landscape looked like before the Mouse stamped his likeness all over everything in sight.

Disney World opened in 1971, 12 years after Walt Disney decided his company needed to open an amusement park east of the Mississippi. After his advance men looked into the possibility of developing an area near Orlando, Florida, Disney flew over the spot in 1963 and liked what he saw: proximity to the planned Interstate 4, the Florida Turnpike and the Air Force base that would become Orlando International Airport (thanks Wikipedia!).

In order to buy up the nearly 28,000 acres around Bay Lake, Disney formed numerous shell corporations with wacky names such as Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation, Latin American Development and Management Corporation and RETLAW (Walter backwards). The land had been acquired in 1912 by the Munger Land Co. and divvied up into 5-acre lots. Since most of the land was swamp, the owners/speculators were more than happy to sell, according to Wikipedia.

Anyway, long story short: Walt Disney died in 1966, five years before the park opened. While I couldn't find any pictures of what the land looked like before the park was built, I did find a cool web site (Daveland!) that has some great early shots of the park.

What Are You Going to Do Next?

Yes, we got a hot tip from Phil Simms about a little resort in Florida built by a guy named Walt Disney. You might know him as the director of the 1928 animated short film, "Steamboat Willie." We're sneaking out of town today and coming back Monday. If you need to contact us, send a telegram to us care of the Contemporary Resort.

The hotel seems to be quite futuristic. In addition to a monorail that runs through the building, the staff also offer jet packs in both adult and kid sizes, to make traveling to and from the various attractions much more exciting.

Owen is excited for something called "Space Mountain," which he assures me will be both exciting and educational. Amelia is so looking forward to Cinderella's Castle, where perhaps we'll sit a spell and drink some tea and eat some scones.

We also plan to visit something called the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or "Epcot." I believe this is where we will refuel our jet packs, and obtain powdered astronaut food.

Finally, our best chums have suggested we fly on over to the Animal Kingdom, where we'll be subject to the whims and vagaries of beast and fowl alike.

Cheerio!

Good Times

As much as I enjoyed "Good Times," this post isn't about the Norman Lear-produced sitcom (which often, as I like to say, took the "com" out of sitcom).

No, this is about having fun over Thanksgiving with my immediate and extended family. Beth and I traveled south with the kids Thursday morning, hitting quite a bit of traffic, but still arriving at my parents' house in Windsor in plenty of time before dinner. My sister was there, as were my brother and his two kids, Grace and Isaiah.

My mother and sister prepared all the great food: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad and gravy. We brought bread, pies and beer. After stuffing our faces, some of us went for the requisite post-meal walk around my parents' neighborhood. The weather was oddly warm (as it has been a lot this month), which was nice. Unlike much of America, we eschewed (I love that word) football, in favor of just hanging out, playing games and listening to my mom play the piano. Hearing her play a few Christmas carols and some ragtime numbers was a treat, as my mom doesn't tickle the ivories as much as she used to.

That night, we slept at my sister's house in West Hartford, with the kids going to bed close to 10:00. The next morning, we all walked to breakfast. We wanted to go to this place, the Quaker Diner:



Unfortunately, this snug little joint was a little too busy to wait with two hungry kids. I do love diners, so we'll have to get there a bit earlier next time.

We ended up, instead, at A.C. Petersen Farms, the remaining restaurant in what was once a small and very popular chain run congruently with four farms.



After breakfast we went back to my parents' house for a while. After a few hours, we headed back to West Hartford to visit my friend Gary and his wife, Rebecca, and kids, Evan and Olivia. While the kids played amazingly well together, the four adults had some drinks and just chewed the fat. As we did with everyone else we saw that weekend, we heard from Gary and Rebecca about what they went through during the loooooooong power outage that much of Connecticut suffered through earlier this month.

I was amazed at all the tree branches still stacked in front of so many houses, awaiting pick up by city and town trucks. I was impressed with how well all my friends and relatives did during the Dark Days.

After our visit, we went back to my sister's place, where my brother and his kids, as well as my parents, were joined by all six of my Brigham cousins and most of their family members. Here are my cousins (l to r) Lynne, John, Amy, Joy (hidden) and Ann:



Here's my cousin Sue (r) with my mom:



Here, my dad entertains my cousins Lynne and Ann, and my mom:



Because it's rare that my brother, sister and I get together with all six of our cousins, there of course had to be pictures:



Thanks to my cousin John's son, Matt, for snapping this great picture.

I took some pictures of the next generation of cousins:



(left to right: Sequoya, Owen, Grace, Lindsay, Isaiah (on Lindsay's lap), Sam, Amelia and Matt)

It was a really fun night.

The next day we trekked back up to my parents' house to say goodbye to my brother and his kids. Then we went out to brunch with my sister and my parents at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The restaurant moved from a smaller location around the corner earlier this year into a space that's pretty huge. The food and service were good, and I like the fact that they feature entertainment on weekends and have a nice little bar tucked into the corner. I wish them well.

Traffic on the way home on Saturday was non-existent, which made for a relaxing trip. Good times, indeed.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!

I Love Lydia

Whenever I tell people I like country music, I have to quickly add, "but not the mainstream crap." I like old stuff like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash (as well as his later stuff), Buck Owens, Hank Thompson and Wanda Jackson, as well as newer stuff ranging from Giant Sand to The Derailers, BR-549 to Lucinda Williams.

And now you can add Lydia Loveless to that list. How can I not love a 21-year-old woman who's confident enough to write and record a song called "Jesus Was a Wino?" Or who covers Metallica in concert?

With a voice powerful enough to slap a cheatin' man standing at the back of the bar, Loveless (her real name? I don't know. I knew a kid in junior high school, a Mormon as it turned out -- the first one I ever met, maybe the only -- named Loveless, so it's possible) is so damn self assured it's scary. Evidently she grew up with musicians tramping through her parents' house, as her father owned a country music bar. As a teenager -- you know, like, just a few years ago -- she got turned on to punk rock and hero-of-the-gutter Charles Bukowski, so now she combines those two musical flavors into what somebody wisely, years ago, dubbed cowpunk.

Anyway, here are a few videos, including the aforementioned Metallica cover.

Subterranean

I've taken so many pictures of Boston's subway system, I don't think I'll ever have enough time and space to post them all. I've posted countless albums on my Facebook page documenting the numerous trips I've taken on the MBTA with my son, Owen. I've also posted a bit on my other blog, The Backside of America (see August 30, 2010, "Going Underground").

Owen likes the different types of trains, especially on the Green line -- well, he used to before he got completely and totally absorbed in Mario Kart. On our trips, I've always taken more interest in the stations, the people and the surrounding scenes on the above-ground portions of our trip.

All the shots in this post are of a mosaic in the Park Street station on the Green line. The work of art was created in 1978 by Lilli Ann Rosenberg, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 86. One hundred ten feet long and weighing in at 12 tons, the mosaic depicts the history of the Boston subway system.

Book Review: "Occupants" by Henry Rollins

I first heard Black Flag nearly 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I was a huge fan of the band through college and for the few years beyond. I saw them twice, and became quite enamored of their lead singer, Henry Rollins. I bought a few of his books, and saw his post-Black Flag band, the Rollins Band, during the brief time I lived in Albuquerque.

In more recent years, I've watched a few episodes of his talk show on IFC, enjoyed his talking head appearances on a variety of networks, and jumped in the wayback machine to watch old Black Flag clips on YouTube.

The only movie of his (and there are many) that I've seen is "Heat," which I didn't like and forgot that he was in. So I'm quite familiar with the man and his output. I'm a fan, although I don't always agree with what he says, and I sometimes get sick of hearing him go on with his strong opinions.

Having in recent years tried to develop an eye for photography, I decided upon learning that Rollins was to publish a book of photos, that I needed to own it.

The photos are by turns heartbreaking, bizarre, beautiful, humorous and uplifting, and always imbued with a sense of humanity. Because Rollins is a man who loves to talk and write, there are of course short essays accompanying each picture.

As he says in the beginning of the book, "I thought it would be pretentious to release a book that only had photographs...So I decided to write something for every photograph."

Great idea, indeed. As someone who publishes a blog featuring pictures of the lesser-seen parts of these United States (The Backside of America), I'm a big believer in words matched with photos.

But Rollins's accompanying write-ups are not at all what I was expecting. I was hoping for explanation, rather than stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Some of them work, some of them don't, but none of them tell me what, who or where I'm looking at. I'm a journalist at heart, and I need that information.

Still, there are some cool shots in the book, and certainly plenty of things to think about as far as injustice, poverty, war, decay, beauty and the human spirit go. Do the photos shock or amaze? No. Does Rollins bring fresh perspective with his words? Nope.

Will this book sit under a coffee table (I know, they're supposed to be on the table) along with my other big books -- "Lost Boston," "The Big Dig," "Lost America" and "Punk: The Definitive Record of a Revolution" among others -- to be pulled out and reviewed once or twice a year? Yeah, sure.

At the very least, the presence of "Occupants" in my house will provide a few opportunities for me to expound on the virtues of Black Flag to my kids, and maybe even their kids.

Book Review: "After Lyletown" by K.C. Frederick

Most people do things when they're young that they regret later on in life, whether it's driving drunk after a party and taking out somebody's mail box, getting a tattoo on your face, or buying a Haircut One Hundred Album.

In K.C. Frederick's "After Lyletown," Alan Ripley's past holds an event of heavier consequence. As a grad student in the '60s, Ripley fell in with a radical crowd that plotted to knock over a gun store and pass along the weapons to black communities struggling for their civil rights. Hardly a committed revolutionary, Ripley is less in love with the idea of arming minorities than he is with the woman who hatched the plot.

As fate would have it, he gets neither the woman nor the chance to prove his loyalty to her plan. A case of appendicitis lands him in the hospital when the caper goes down. Things go badly; one man dies and another ends up in jail for a long stretch.

Twenty years later, Ripley is a successful lawyer living in the suburbs of Boston with his wife and son. His life is comfortable. Until Rory, the man who spent several years in jail over the failed weapons heist, rings him up.

After Rory entered the story, I spent much of my reading time expecting something big and bad to happen. And while it never does, Frederick develops great suspense. What does Rory want from Alan? Why does Alan hide his past from his wife? What will happen when she finds out about this dark chapter of his life? Will Rory blackmail Alan and ruin his married and professional lives?

Rather than add more violence and crime to the initial, and crucial, episode, Frederick builds the story by gradually filling in the details of Alan's past and present. In some ways, he's like a reformed convict, although he didn't take part in the failed plot, and didn't serve jail time. He realized that his hospitalization was a gift, and that he needed to mature, and use that opportunity to help people. Sure, there was a failed marriage. Sure, he's not always sure he's doing the right thing in his job. But that's what makes him such a human protagonist.

"After Lyletown" springs from a revolutionary era in the United States. The book succeeds, however, because Frederick understands the quiet moments from which real change occurs: poor decision-making made in the name of love, guilt kept close to the vest, blind faith that an associate with a chequered past won't ruin one's life.

Frederick does a great job of bringing the reader into Alan's convoluted life, and reminding us that we cannot, ultimately, escape our own history.

Extra! Extra! Blog All About It!

Seven weeks after I sent an entry to the Indie Books Blog, today is the day they feature my book, "(C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity."

You can read my blurb here; if you haven't bought the book yet, there's a "buy" link at the bottom of the post.

Thank you.

As you were....

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer turns 65 on Saturday, October 15th. Funny guy Norm MacDonald will be 47 on Monday.

But more importantly, my niece, Grace, turns 8 on Tuesday the 18th, and my brother, Steve, will be the big 5-0 on Thursday the 20th.

This past weekend, Beth and I flew to D.C. for a surprise birthday party my sister-in-law, Tonya, threw for my brother. Held at the massive and well-appointed Gaylord National Harbor Hotel, the bash featured loads of dance music, a fun quiz game, free drinks, good eats and a great time for hanging out with family.



As you can see, despite the fact that more than 80 people were invited, and that Tonya had to convince Steve that, yes, indeed, they were going to see a jazz band in a hotel ballroom, my brother was surprised.

He had a great time, making the rounds several times, dancing like he probably hasn't done in years, and giving a heartfelt speech of thanks to the gathering of friends, family, coworkers and neighbors.

The next day, Beth and I joined my brother, Tonya, their kids, Grace and Isaiah, and my sister and parents for brunch in the hotel. The trip was a quick one, but it was great to celebrate with my big brother and see how well loved he is in his various communities.



Happy birthday, bro!

It was great to see my brother's kids, too. I can't believe Grace is going to be 8. She's such a great kid: smart, funny, a great dancer (a highlight of the party was when she, Isaiah and some friends and cousins hit the dance floor with my brother), artistic and musical. And it's cool to see her excited about soccer and ice skating.

Here's my favorite recent picture of her:



Here's a big happy birthday to you, Grace! Hope we see you and Isaiah, and your mom and dad, at Thanksgiving.

(C)rocktoberfest!

UPDATE: ALL THE PRIZES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED!

Welcome to the first-ever promotional quiz for my book, "(C)ROCK STORIES: MILLION-DOLLAR TALES OF MUSIC, MAYHEM AND IMMATURITY."

Below are 10 questions that relate to stories in the book. The first five people to answer all 10 correctly will receive their choice of (1) copy of the book OR (1) promotional t-shirt from Zazzle.

To see your t-shirt choices, visit my Zazzle store. There are 15 shirts (in both guys' and gals' styles), one for each story in the book. Select one, email me your choice, and I'll order it and have it shipped.

Send answers to me here.

Use any life line you need.

GOOD LUCK!


1) Name a band in which "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" writer/singer Rick Derringer played.

2) Name two original members of Foghat.

3) Name Stewart Copeland's pre-Police band.

4) Define "poser."

5) Who is "Echo" from Echo & the Bunnymen?

6) Which band formed first, New Order or Soundgarden?

7) List two names that Butthole Surfers performed under before selecting their official name?

8) Who's the most famous band to come out of Athens, GA?

9) What is Steven Tyler's birth name?

10) Other than "a post-punk band from Washington, D.C.," what does "fugazi" mean in?

We've Been Blair Witched

I know it doesn't look like much, but that thin, rusty pole in my backyard has me a little on edge. I noticed it this morning as I was getting into the car to drive Amelia to preschool. I got out of the car, walked into the backyard, took a quick look at the pole, shrugged my shoulders and scratched my head, then got back in and took her to school.

When I returned about 20 minutes later, I promptly got out my camera and snapped a few pictures, before removing the pole and resting it against my shed. I emailed two pictures to my wife, Beth, and a few minutes later she called so we could say to each other, "That's really weird. I have no idea how that got there."

"It's like 'Blair Witch,'" she said, referencing this movie.

Maybe the reason I'm feeling a little hinky is because I'm currently reading K.C. Frederick's "After Lyletown," in which a guy in his mid-40s is feeling a bit nervous after an encounter with someone from his past. I have no clue if a neighbor is playing a joke by sticking this random pole in my yard, or whether someone I don't know wandered in late yesterday afternoon while Beth, the kids and I were at Owen's school picnic.

Either way, it's odd. Who puts a rusty pole into someone's yard?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

I found myself thinking about the John Candy/Steve Martin comedy vehicle "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" this past weekend during a quick trip to D.C. to see a Nationals game with my brother, Steve, and sister, Beth. No, I didn't have to share a room with a sweaty shower curtain ring salesman who had his hands between my "pillows."

But the trip didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped.

The plan: leave Boston at 3:40, meet my sister at BWI Airport, hop in a rental car, drive to the Greenbelt Metro station and ride into D.C. to meet my brother, who lives in Maryland, and works in the capital. This is the third year that the three of us have gotten together for a siblings-only trip. Two years ago they met me in Cooperstown to tour the Baseball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, they couldn't stick around the next day to watch me play on the Hall's field with my over-40 team.

Last year, to celebrate my sister's 50th birthday, we gathered at Fenway Park for a Sox game. We hung out during a rain delay and ate at the park, a fate that we feared we might face again this year, based on the D.C. forecast for last Friday.

The weather turned out fine, but unfortunately my sister and I didn't arrive at the park until the 4th inning. My flight was delayed nearly an hour, so I didn't arrive at BWI until nearly 6:00. By the time my sister and I rode the rental car shuttle, waited in line at Enterprise, filled out paper work and hit the road, it was about 6:30.

My brother had suggested we drive to Greenbelt and ride the train, instead of trying to find parking in D.C. near the park. The drive to the station went relatively smoothly. We parked, got our tickets and went up to the platform.

We had to wait close to 10 minutes for the train, but were happy once it arrived. By this time, the game had begun, but we figured we'd be on the train for about 30 minutes and be at the game by about 7:45 or so.

The train cruised to the College Park stop as my sister and I chatted about the Red Sox, the Nationals, what else we had planned for the weekend, blah blah blah. Then, between College Park and Prince George's Plaza, the train got all herky jerky.

Then it stopped completely. Several times, the driver tried to get it moving, but it wouldn't go far before it came to a halt again. Then we sat for a few minutes, having no idea what was going on. After a few minutes, we got going pretty well and pulled into the station. But then the driver announced we had to debark and wait for another train.

So we got off, and waited on the platform for a few minutes, glad the rain we'd been expecting was holding off. After a few more minutes, an announcement came over the P.A. telling us to cross up and over the tracks to the other side, where a train would arrive in a few minutes.

Everybody walked to the other side, where we waited a few more minutes before a train arrived. Finally, we were on our way, seemingly at super-sonic speed. I tell ya, those Metro trains can HAUL!

Still, we had 11 stops to go before Navy Yard. By the time we traveled through all those stations and got up and out of the station, it was almost 8:30. We got to the game, met my brother, stuffed our faces with hot dogs, fries, chili, ice cream and beer and watched the Nationals try, but fail, to overcome a 6-1 deficit.

The park is nice; our left-field bleachers seats afforded a pretty good view. The game was fun, even though I didn't know many players and had no concern of the outcome. I was glad to have finally arrived, and to be hanging out with my brother and sister. We had a lot of laughs during the game, and on the way back to Greenbelt and during the drive from the Metro station to my brother's house in Bowie.

We chatted for about an hour before hitting the hay around midnight. The next day I had a fun breakfast with my sister, and my brother and his family: his wife, Tonya, and my niece, Grace, and nephew, Isaiah. After breakfast, my sister and I gave Isaiah his presents for his third birthday, which was Sunday.

Shortly after that, I had to head back to the airport, while the rest of them were off to Grace and Isaiah's soccer games.

A short trip, made shorter by the failings of two transportation modes, but all in all, a good time.

Hit or Miss: Man Sized Action

Because it's been a long time, I don't recall whether I picked up Man Sized Action's Claustrophobia at random, or whether I'd heard about them because Husker Du's Bob Mould produced the album (side note: I definitely bought Soul Asylum's Made to Be Broken after reading, probably in SPIN, that Mould produced it).

Either way, I had no idea what Man Sized Action would sound like. It ain't like today, kids, when the Internet tells you everything you need to know, and way, way more.

And frankly, before writing this, I didn't recall what they sounded like. Their tunes haven't been burned into my psyche the way many of The Rezillos' songs have (see September 8, 2011, Hit or Miss, Part I).

The band certainly had their supporters. Obviously, Mould was behind them. I also found an article online written by recording engineer extraordinaire/arbiter of punk cool Steve Albini, who also dug Man Sized Action.

I have to say, though, after listening to these album samples (I don't have a working turntable), I'm not impressed. The music isn't as fast as I was expecting, and I can't stand singer Pat Woods's voice.

Yes, there are bands I like whose singers are obviously not classically trained (such as my favorite band of all time, the Flaming Lips). And I love Neil Young and his crazy warble.

I would definitely like Man Sized Action if their singer didn't sound so...bored, and like he's afraid to let it all go. When he tries to emote, it's like he doesn't know how. Score Man Sized Action's Claustrophobia a miss.

Judge for yourself:

Hurricanes, Birthdays and Tobacco

We went to my parents' house this weekend as a make-up for a busted plan during Hurricane Irene two weeks prior. My brother and sister-in-law and their two kids, Grace and Isaiah, flew up Friday. We arrived Saturday at lunchtime, not long after my sister. We'd been scheduled to gather the last weekend of August in Old Saybrook, CT, but my brother and his family had to cancel, because they figured their flight home on Sunday -- the day the hurricane hit New England -- would be canceled. We went down to Old Saybrook for one night (instead of the planned two) and stayed with my sister and my parents at the house we'd rented.

It was good to have a chance to hang out with everybody, and to celebrate Beth's birthday to boot.



After lunch on Saturday, we took the kids, along with Grace (Isaiah stayed behind with his parents to try and take a nap), to a park in Windsor, the town where my parents moved four years ago. My sister and my mom joined us at Northwest Park. After checking out and feeding a bunch of farm animals (sheep, cow, horse, donkey, turkey, goats) and cruising through the nature center, we hung out at the playground for quite a while. It was great to see Owen and Amelia just goofing around with Grace, who they only see a few times a year.

I also checked out part of the on-site tobacco museum, with Grace, my sister and my mom. Like many towns in the Connecticut River Valley, Windsor was a tobacco town. I'm pretty sure the land on which the park sits was donated to the town by owners of a former tobacco operation. My hometown, Simsbury, was also a tobacco town. When I was a kid, there were tobacco barns on the edge of my neighborhood, right next to the train tracks.

The museum proper, which houses all sorts of equipment and samples of tobacco, was closed. So we walked around the archive building. There, we saw lots of cool old photos and glass cases of cigars, cutters and other small equipment. What I found most interesting was the display of small banners that in the early days of the industry were included inside the cigar boxes. Very cool collectibles.

Later, we all went out to dinner, before going back to my parents' house for cake, ice cream and presents. That night, Beth, the kids and I slept at my sister's house.

The next morning we went back up to my parents' house and ate breakfast while my brother and his family packed for their flight back to Maryland. It was a quick visit, but it was good to see everybody and catch up.

My sister and I are flying down to MD on September 23 to catch a Nationals game with my brother.

I'm looking forward to that, but I'm also anxious for the holidays, when all of us will be together again, for scenes like this.



And to talk about sports and trucks with my little buddy, Isaiah.

Hit or Miss: The Rezillos

I discovered punk rock (and, by association, post-punk and lesser-known New Wave) via college radio, when I was a junior in high school. Eventually, I shifted from buying Rick Derringer 45's and Charlie Daniels LP's at Caldor to seeking out Dead Kennedys, Joy Division and Phantom Tollbooth albums at independently owned Capitol Records (R.I.P.) in Hartford.

At Capitol, there were so many albums to go through, that often, after I'd picked a few records I'd heard of, I'd select something purely on how cool the cover was, or whether the name of the band clicked with me.

I've still got most of my LP's, stored in the attic, although I haven't listened to them in years. Every year I swear I'm gonna buy an MP3 turntable and get all my vinyl onto my iPod. I think this is the year. Really.

Anyway, I figured over the course of some posts here, I'd feature some of the hits and misses from those blind album choices of years gone by.

The most colorful album cover to strike my fancy was The Rezillos' Can't Stand The Rezillos, seen above. The band's debut, it featured covers of '60s songs including The Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over," Gerry & the Pacemakers' "I Like It" and "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight," a song originally recorded by Fleetwood Mac in 1969 (see below for The Rezillos' version).

The band had a Top 20 hit in their native U.K. with "Top of the Pops."




While that song is catchy, I favored the album's lead cut, "Flying Saucer Attack," a choice that will surprise no one who knows me.



"(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" is pretty darn good, too.



But for pure pogoing pleasure, nothing beat the band's version of the aforementioned "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight."





Score Can't Stand The Rezillos a hit.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

I had big dreams when I published my first book: I wanted to sell 500 copies over the course of the first year. After eight months, I've sold less than 1/5th that amount. Sure, I knew the first 50 or so copies would be the easiest ones to unload. I promoted the book via Facebook and word of mouth and during the first few months sales were relatively brisk, mainly to friends and family. My book was in the top 10 sellers for a short time on Booklocker, the print on-demand company I used to put out my book.

All along, I was concerned that I would run out of energy and motivation to continue marketing the book. And sure enough, I did. I never thought I'd get rich off the book, but I've always hoped to at least break even. But I wasn't willing to do what I needed to do to boost sales, i.e., contact all area independent bookstores; mail out review copies blindly; push myself on local media outlets; walk around Boston with a sandwich board sign (and nothing else!) featuring the front and back covers of the book.

Of late, however, I've been pushing the book a bit more, and sales have increased a little, which is nice. I've sold a few through the Newbury Comics chain of stores in Massachusetts, had two books places in my locally owned bookstore, Newtonville Books, and seen a few copies fly off the digital shelves as well.

With summer coming to an end, I'll have more free time to promote my book, and work on other things, such as my two children's books, my novel/concept album project, and an article about a mystery in my hometown of Simsbury, CT, that I wrote about here last week (see August 24, 2011, "My Nascent Archeology Career").

So, in case you haven't gotten the point, I'd like you to go out and buy my book. Or, if you've already bought it, please recommend it to your friends and family.

As they used to say on the Bartles & Jaymes commercials, thank you very much for your support.

My Nascent Archeology Career

I've long been interested in archeology: I'm fascinated by the stories of discovery in Egypt's Valley of the Kings; Jordan's ancient city of Petra; the trove of material uncovered during Boston's Big Dig project; really, any place where scientists locate and delicately reveal pieces of the distant (and not-so-distant) past.

I subscribe to American Archeology magazine.

Here's some quick background on the above photo. When I was 14 or 15, two older kids in my neighborhood told my friends and me that they'd rummaged through an abandoned house close to the nearby railroad tracks. It was full of somebody's stuff -- lots of it, they said.

So my buddy Pat and I (and maybe his brother, Bryan) hoofed it down the tracks, then slid down a hill leading to a swampy area until we got to the house. Sure enough, the place was empty of people, but full of all the things that make up a life: boxes and cans of food; framed photos; clothes; magazines, books and newspapers; a mannequin (?); pots and pans.

I imagine we went back at least one more time, although I can't recall (it's been a looooong time). I don't remember when the house was torn down. In the early '80s, when I was 18, a road was built right near where the house had been, leading over the train tracks and into a new condo development.

While I didn't know the people who had lived in the now-abandoned house, the memory of walking through the detritus of their lives haunted me for quite some time. OK, maybe I wasn't dwelling on it in college, but through my 20's and into middle age (oh man, is that what 46 is?) I've continued to puzzle through the situation. Why did the owners leave behind everything? Were they forced to leave? Who were they? How long had they lived there?

I remember that the people in the pictures in the house were African-American. I let my mind wander to dark places when I thought about these unknown folks. Did racists from my hometown threaten the family, forcing them to flee? I doubted it, but I just had no clues as to what had gone on.

Fast forward to August 2011. I joined a group on Facebook called "I grew up in Simsbury, CT." I posted a question wondering if anybody knew anything about this abandoned house, and lo and behold, two people not only knew of the house, but had visited the old man who lived there back when they were teenagers.

They told me his name was President Little (what a name!) and that he was the son of slaves. One of them said he had no family to leave anything to when he died, which was why the house was left in the condition that my friends and I found it. The other Facebook commenter said, "President was a great man, and all the kids loved him."

Well, I was thrilled to uncover a piece of the puzzle. I had a name, and the fact that the man claimed to be the son of slaves (or that somebody remembered it that way) backed up my memory of seeing a black family in pictures in the house. A quick Google search turned up some basic genealogical facts. Turns out President Little's parents weren't slaves, as they were born in the late 1800's. But it's entirely possible he was the grandson of slaves.

I also discovered that President Little had five kids, and as best as I can tell, four of them were alive in 1981 when he died. It's possible that one or two of them are alive today. So why didn't he leave the house and his belongings to one of them?

As fate would have it, I had a trip to Simsbury planned for last Friday, August 19. I played in the 7th annual Ben Nascimbeni Memorial Golf Classic. I set out from home a bit earlier than I needed to in order to try and find anything at all at the site where President Little and his family had once lived.

I turned off Route 10 onto the road leading past where the house had been, and into the development. I walked back down the road, toward Route 10, looking for an entry point into the thick woods that shield the development from the road.

Finding no path, I just plunged in, camera in hand, not caring at all about the fact that I was wearing neat and clean golfing clothes. The going was a little rough and muddy, but within five minutes I stumbled across what I figured was the remains of President Little's abode.

Upon my approach, I could tell I was in the right place. It looked like this:





I stepped carefully through the mud, and around the objects, and things began to come into clearer focus.





I was thrilled that I'd found this location that had been on my mind so often over the years. I was proud of myself for taking the plunge into those woods and so quickly locating the spot. These feelings were mixed with sadness, however, about the fact that somebody's life and belongings were slowly sinking into the muck. I was also shocked, frankly, that whoever had torn down the house had removed big items like furniture and appliances, but simply left behind these smaller items.

So what now? I'm not sure. I've talked in the recent past in the abstract sense of wanting to write a book about this house and its abandonment. Now that I've discovered the name of the man who lived there, and been to the site, strangely I feel less of a need to take on something as big as a book. Honestly, I never knew what form the book would take.

I do plan, however, on finding out as much information as I can about President Little, his family, the house, people who knew him, etc. And put together an article of some sort and try and find a market for it.

This project brings together so many of my interests: history, archeology, genealogy, my hometown, detective work. I can't say why this concept has stuck with me for such a long time. Encountering the abandoned house all those years ago made quite a mark on my psyche, and I've felt the need to solve the puzzle, even though I have just a very tangential connection to the people involved.

Stay tuned....

Well, I Almost Got On the Field

I reported yesterday that I'd be stepping onto the Fenway Park diamond before today's Sox game, but alas only Owen and Beth got that opportunity (see August 15, 2011, "Chance of a Lifetime").

I hung out with Amelia while the two of them were on the field for a pre-game ceremony involving Beth's company. It was Amelia's first time at Fenway, which she enjoyed, especially the chocolate ice cream.



Owen had fun hanging with a few other kids while Beth did her corporate duty. He even got to meet Wally.






As for Beth, she made it to the big screen.

We all had fun, and our decision to leave after the 6th inning was a good one, as the score remained the same, Sox up 3-1, from that point on.

Chance of a Lifetime

Tomorrow, August 16, marks the the second time that I will set foot on the field at Fenway Park. The first time was in October 2002, during the Emerald Necklace Half Marathon. That was the first half marathon I ran, and certainly the most memorable. The race starts near Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and continues near Fenway. Because the Red Sox weren't in the playoffs that year, the course ran down Lansdowne Street, under Fenway's center field bleachers, and onto the warning track. We then ran all around the park on the track, including next to the Green Monstah. It was very cool.

Still, not as cool as I expect tomorrow's experience to be.

More details will follow, but in a nutshell, Beth is going to be the on-field representative for her company in a pre-game ceremony, and the kids and I get to tag along, and then stick around the for game. We'll be there for the first game, which starts at 1:35. Jon Lester (see above) will be pitching.

More details and pictures to follow.

Put Me In, Coach

(I love this picture. This is Owen's fall 2010 team, which I didn't coach, but which I enjoyed watching immensely.)

I love baseball. I loved playing as a kid and a teenager. I loved playing as a grown-up, from age 40 to 44. I love watching the Red Sox. I mourn baseball during the winter.

But I'm conflicted about coaching. In the first draft of this post (yes, I'm a journalist at heart), I went on about how coaching Owen's team this summer has been a bit of a pain in the ass. Then I read through it and thought I was being a bit of a drag, so I set to rewriting it.

Then, came the latest agonizing, I-need-a-beer-immediately-after-this-game kind of a game. And now I realize that if Owen continues to play baseball next spring (he's taking this fall off, after having played three seasons in a row), I won't be coaching. Over are my days of keeping score, telling kids repeatedly to keep their eyes on the batter, and reminding each and every kid that they won't get a hit if they don't swing the bat.

I tip my hat to those with the combination of patience, empathy and discipline to wrangle kids, teach them the basics, encourage them to have fun and let them know that the world won't end if they lose a game or don't get to pitch.

Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed coaching. First of all, my presence behind the bench makes Owen feel more comfortable than if another coach is there. He's a shy kid on the bench, and I think my being there helps him relax a bit. I like being there with him, just as I felt good when my dad helped coach my Little League team.

Secondly, I enjoy watching a kid get his first hit, or make a really great play, or whoop it up when he (or she; we had a girl on the team for the first half of the season) scores a run. I make it a point to congratulate kids on all the good things they do, while also making sure I point out as best I can where they can do better. It's hard to get information into their heads during the game; that's what practices are for, but we don't have those in the summer.

Owen's teammates are good kids. Each one of them had at least a few good moments during this short season (we've played seven games; we've got one more next week). Sure, they lose focus more than I'd like, and they hector (I love that word) me about pitching or catching or batting first more than they should. But they're 7- to 9-year-olds and that's what they do.

And I signed up for this, so I can't complain (too much).

But it sure can be tedious. The kids have a hard time focusing, probably because most of them have been in camp all day. So when they're in the field, I spend a lot of time reminding them to keep their eyes on the batter, or to get their gloves off their heads. Because there aren't any practices, I'm constantly yelling out to them what the situation is, i.e., runner on first, one out, play it to second, tag the base. Two of the kids had never played organized baseball before this summer, so they don't always know what to do, or where to be.

I recruited two dads (Thank God!) from the team to help, so they take part in this, too.

When we're at bat, it's more of the same. Reminding each kid to keep his eye on the ball, swing hard, keep your back foot planted. When they're on base, we spend a lot of time telling them the number of outs, run if it's on the ground and go part way if it's in the air (unless there are two outs).

Yes, I know, this is what coaching is. And for the most part I enjoy it. But this is all done on two feet; there's no sitting down. God, I sound old, don't I? Anyway, the games are slow, because most of these kids (at least on our team) are just learning to pitch, so there are a lot of walks. In an effort to keep the free passes to a minimum, the league instituted a rule by which if a pitcher walks two kids in an inning, and throws four balls to a third kid, that batter is then pitched to by one of his coaches, until he gets a hit or strikes out.

Our penultimate game was a tough one. One of the kids refused to take the field if I didn't let him pitch. I told him I needed him in a different position, and then his mother and I spent about five minutes cajoling him into taking the field so the inning could start.

Later in the game, another kid got very upset because he hadn't pitched in as many games as his brother, and this was their last game, and it wasn't fair, in his view. I assured him he'd done a great job in the field, and that's where I needed him. His father is one of the assistant coaches, and helped smooth things over. Still, I never thought I'd be so exhausted and exasperated during a three-inning Little League game.

We've only got one more game, and Owen's not planning on playing in the fall, so before you know it I'll be complaining that I miss coaching Little League. Because I love baseball.

Sucked Back In

After a few years away, I've been sucked back into the vortex of black ops, government conspiracies, and UFO's.

My fascination started when I was a kid, looking through my parents' copy of "Chariots of the Gods," which asks questions such as, "Did astronauts visit the Earth 40,000 years ago?" and "Did extraterrestrial beings help set up the giant stone faces that brood over Easter Island?"

I don't remember the answers, or frankly reading that much of it, but the pictures were cool and made me think about ancient civilizations and wonder whether it was possible that aliens had visited, say, the Incas.

I, like so many kids of my generation, was very taken by Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," some of which I'm watching as I type this sentence. Thanks Retroplex!

Anyway, it's not like I obsessed about UFO's when I was a kid, but when I got into college I began thinking about them more. I wrote a short story in my 20s about two young brothers who see an alien space ship. The younger brother wants to tell their family, friends and the world about it, because he's just so fascinated by it. The older brother believes that if they talk about it in public, people will think they're crazy. I don't remember the exact ending, but it definitely gave the younger brother (basically me) the upper hand.

Of course, later in my 20s I got into "The X-Files." I loved the one-off episodes, which dealt with all sorts of odd characters and spooky sightings, more than the government conspiracy aspects that took over, and eventually ruined, the show.

I read Whitley Strieber's Communion, in which the man known up to that point for horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger details his alleged encounter with extraterrestrials.

And several years ago I began writing a concept album about UFO's, which I have subsequently used as an outline of sorts for a novel with the working title "Area 51 Is for Lovers." My plan is to complete both an album and the novel and market them together in digital form.

So I think it's safe to say I've put more thought into the extraterrestrial phenomenon than most people my age. But of late I'd taken AboveTopSecret.com and other conspiracy web sites off my regular browsing list. I spent my time a little more constructively: finishing my collection of short stories, trying to launch myself as a children's book writer, raising my kids, coaching Owen's baseball team, etc.

OK, I did discuss UFO's with my buddy Jay Kumar for his excellent podcast, Completely Conspicuous, back in February 2010. You can check it out here.

But, seriously, I've not given much thought to alien spacecrafts and nefarious government plots for quite some time. But I just finished reading Annie Jacobsen's "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," so now I'm back on-line, both in the sense of wanting to know what's up with top-secret military projects and possible alien incursions, and in checking out some of my old favorite web sites.

I used to be positive that Earth had been visited by aliens. In the galaxy, with its billions of stars, I figured, there must be at least one planet out there with a civilization advanced enough to locate another planet with advanced beings, and to figure out how to travel through space to get here.

But after having finished "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," by Annie Jacobsen, I believe that a lot of what gets reported as UFO's are actually secret government projects. Area 51 is the place where the CIA and the Air Force developed spy planes and drones. Nearby locations that are part of the Nevada Test Site have seen hundreds of nuclear bombs detonated over the last half century.

Jacobsen does a great job documenting the history of the super-secret site, which the U.S. government has never acknowledged. Or it has, depending on whom you ask. She talked to numerous former employees of the CIA and the military who worked at the site starting in the '50s. The stories about the Cold War, and overhead reconnaissance, nuclear testing, spy projects and the like are fascinating enough.

But then at the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT!!) Jacobsen drops the biggest bombshell of them all: the only unnamed source in her book claims that he was one of five engineers (and the only surviving one) to have worked to reverse engineer the infamous UFO that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.

He claims the craft had Russian writing inside, and that the "alien beings" that have long rumored to have been inside were actually genetically or biologically altered, child-sized humans. The engineer claims that his team was told that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had recruited the most heinous Nazi doctor of them all, Josef Mengele, to aid the Russians in their effort to pull off a UFO hoax that would throw the United States into a "War of the Words"-type panic. Mengele, known for his demonic surgeries and medical abuses of twins, Gypsies, Jews and other minorities in Germany, provided the Russians with children, or very small adults, with enlarged hears and saucer-like eyes, the book claims.

The aircraft that they landed in was controlled remotely, goes the argument, and the Russians' hope was that when they landed on U.S. soil, the government and people who think we'd been invaded by aliens and that all hell would break loose.

The engineer also claims that his team and subsequent ones not only worked to reverse-engineer the craft, but also performed tests on humans similar to what Mengele and the Russians had done.

I don't know what to think about all of this. Last week I went online and found reports citing many of Jacobsen's named sources, and they say she's way off with this claim, and that she included it only to sell books. Of course, taking the word of men who spent their entire adult lives keeping secrets for the government is rather difficult to do. Are they helping to perpetuate what Jacobsen claims is the real reason that Area 51 has never been acknowledged? That rather than as a way to keep all their airplane and bomb technology in the black, that what the government really is doing is hiding the fact that we engaged in unspeakable human testing in the name of fighting the Cold War?

Frankly, just about any scenario seems possible to me. I believe that during the Cold War, paranoid men did crazy things. Some of these actions were necessary, sure. Preventing the Soviets from putting nuclear missiles on Cuba was a must-do. I condone spy planes and satellites, although I wish they weren't necessary.

But the number of nuclear bombs that the U.S. government detonated -- in Nevada, in the Pacific -- is just ridiculous. Those events caused damage to the environment and surely to humans and animals in the area. Others were just purely evil in their disregard for what might happen. For instance, the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) detonated a thermonuclear device in the atmosphere, despite protestations from the scientific community that doing so could possibly set the planet's ozone layer on fire.

Reading Jacobsen's book makes we wonder what's been going on at Area 51 for the last 30 years or so. She doesn't cover that time period, because the government hasn't declassified anything since the late '70s. The technology that has come out of Area 51 is amazing: stealth bombers, which were in the works since the late '60s but didn't get perfected until the late '70s; drones, which are now commonplace in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but which were first envisioned in the '50s; bunker-buster bombs; the march of military hardware goes on.

So I have to think that whatever's been in the works out in the Nevada desert for the last few decades has got to be pretty incredible. Do the current projects relate to cyber wars? Biologial warfare? Battle field cyborgs? Who the hell knows?

In the course of writing this, I did some online research and learned about Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, which some folks in the conspiracy industry call "Area 52." These folks, including the dudes from History Channel's "UFO Hunters," say that since Area 51 was exposed in the '80s as the place where so much military-industrial-espionage work goes on, much of the black ops works has shifted to Dugway.

So now I've got another place to obsess over. Great.

I'll use my newfound momentum to finish my album and novel. And maybe some day I'll take a trip out west to see these top-secret locations, and camp out in hopes of seeing some crazy, unidentified lights or space ships, all the time wondering if anybody will ever discover the truth that's out there.