2012: A Fresh Perspective

It is a new year.

I am a little wiser.

Where have I been again?

Well, for starters, I put a lot of "time in the bank" at home over the winter recess. I know how incredibly busy my semester is going to be, so I wanted to make sure that I got to spend a lot of time with the kiddies. 

<--- This is a picture of my girls and me playing the game Headbandz. You put a card in the headband and try to guess what it could be by asking questions before the time runs out. It is silly and fun, and my girls love playing it, which means, I love playing it.  

Over the break, we all spontaneously decided that we would take a rock climbing safety course. I have never tried rock climbing. Neither has wifey. We are both semi-afraid of heights. I've learned that rock climbing is really good fun and a good way to keep upper body strength. We've learned that we have some various degree of spidery children among us. All but my youngest could take the course. It is mere matter of being able to fit in the climbing belts. My twins barely fit. 

I also have been writing and performing quite a bit. Wifey dances with a regional modern dance company called BIODANCE. I wrote and performed a piece with them recently in Brooklyn. Working with wifey is fun. It gives us the opportunity to spend some quality time with each other while seeing some really cool places (and drinking some kick-ass beer).  

How hysterical is the painting on the wall of this restaurant that we went to in Brooklyn??!! Nothing says classy like pole dancing. 

I also have been writing and performing quite a bit. Wifey dances with a regional modern dance company called BIODANCE. I wrote and performed a piece with them recently in Brooklyn. Working with wifey is fun. It gives us the opportunity to spend some quality time with each other while seeing some really cool places (and drinking some kick-ass beer).  I am here with four of the members of BIODANCE after a week long engagement at a theater in western New York. 

Observations:

• Uncle Ben (and Voltaire) were correct— "With great power comes great responsibility."

• There exists an inverse relationship between the number of children I have and the amount of hair I have left.

• On the way home in the car the other night from the gym, I looked out the window of our mom-mobile and commented on how beautiful the moon looked. The full moon shone brightly, unobstructed by any clouds. Then, out of the blue, Luca asks me, "what is mooning?" I caught wifeys eyes out of the corner of mine and we gave each other a quick look. So, I proceeded to tell the kids what mooning meant.

There was a pause.

Finally, Julian—the second oldest—says, "Dad, I bet you would like it if mommy did that to you."

Wise man, that Julian.

He's right.

Kids 5k: 

I don't know what exactly prompted discussion, or who brought it up, but there was a 5k race last weekend in town that my kids asked if they could run. Over the summer, they have run some "kid fun runs." Neither of them ever did a run over one mile. Wifey was skeptical. I got the, "Mark, do you really think that they are capable of running a 5k?  That is really far. I did not see any reason why they could not just go out there, run/jog/walk slowly if they needed and have a good time with their old man. So, we went and made it in a nick of time.

It was really cute. Both of them wanted to start up in the front, but dad convinced them that we should start near the back and pass everyone along the way.

So, this is how the race went down:

Luca—as he always does—started like a bat outta hell. Julian took it slow and steady. He managed to run the first two miles nice and steady, but at the first long steep hill had to walk a little bit. I stayed with him the whole time reassuring him that it was okay to walk. He continued running again shortly after that and he managed to catch his older brother. Nice!

Both of them got first time 5k medals, and Julian finished 3rd in the 0-10 age group. He just turned eight. He was super excited to get a ribbon and a medal!

The boys have been asking me when we are going to run another 5k.

Bikes:

Bikes!  Wifey and I decided that our Christmas present to the children this year would be to bite the bullet and buy brand new bikes that were worthy of the hills and bike trails around our new house. Wifey pointed out that she thought it was fair considering that their father now owned three really nice bikes. Don't tell the wifey, but I am in the market for a 29'er. My friend EJ over at Crankskins  has convinced me that I need to get on a mountain bike  and experiencing the thrill of crashing into trees cross training.

Oddly, I started my love of cycling by mountain biking. When I was a student, I founded the "Adventure Club" on campus. We would go white water rafting, spelunking, skydiving, etc. One of the greatest trips I ever scheduled for the club was to Snowshoe, West Virginia to go mountain bike riding. Let's face it, West Virginia is really just a giant adult playground. Seriously, have you ever been there? Morgantown—where West Virginia University is located—was/is the most metropolitan "city" in West Virginia. Even Morgantown had a real "you might run into Davy Crockett" sometime soon sort of feel to it. It was the only place that I have ever been in North America where coonskin caps are still in style.

Inspiration:

You know, I remember once asking my father on my 35th Birthday if he would like to be thirty-five again. He was seventy -five years old then. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at me quizzically and said "Mark, I would like to be sixty-five again." I thought that was a hysterical and unexpected answer.

As we continued talking, he explained that even though his body was not able to do the same things it once could, that his mind still believed that anything was possible. He used the example of the ottoman that lay in front of his chair and said, "Look at that. In my head, I know I can jump over that. I have memory over me doing that very thing. But I know that if I try to do it, I am going to kill myself."

As my father was telling me this, I couldn't help but think of Lew Hollander—the eighty year old, who in 2010 finished the Ironman World Championships in Kona in 15:48:30, knocking off more than an hour from his finish the previous year.

The mind is amazing. What you believe you can do is sometimes more important than your ability to actually to be physically capable. It is my belief that persistence trumps talent. Perseverance is the secret to discovering new talent within ourselves. Pushing ourselves past the point that we thought we were capable of allows us to believe that even more is possible.

What I learned from my father was that people who are successful in life are often not the most talented in their discipline, but they are the people who outwork everyone else. They don't complain how tired they are. They continue to work, to learn, never resting on their laurels, never compromising the integrity of their work, and above all else, always remaining humble.

They don't give reasons why something can not be done, but rather, ask, "how am I going to solve this problem? How am I going to make it work?" When everyone is debating whether it is a glass half full, or half empty, they've already drank the water.

TRAINING:

Training has left me reenergized. I have made some really decent strides with my swimming over the last month. After six seasons of learning how to swim, I think I am starting to finally realize what people mean by "the feel of the water." Hey, better late than never, right?

My body has been pretty tired as a result of bumping up the training volume a bit earlier this year. I am scheduled for my first triathlon at Rev3 Quassay, where I will race the Olympic distance.

My biking seems to be the thing I need to work on the most, although I recently discovered Netflix!  

Yes, yes... I know what you are all thinking... recently??!!  I mean, we've always known about Netflix, but wifey and I have finally decided to try it out. Can I just tell you how much faster Netflix makes my trainer time go? 

A lot!

Tomorrow is my first day back teaching classes after a nice, long break.

I get to teach History of Rock and Roll (at 8:45 in the morning!) 

Rock on!

Some awesome news happening soon. Looking forward to sharing. 

Train Smart!

Lazer Helmet Give Away: And The Winner Is...

Congratulations to some chick named Laura Wheatley. She is the proud new owner of a Lazer Tardiz helmet. The rest of you should be green with envy.

Thank you to everyone who signed up to participate in the giveaway. I appreciate your PATIENCE more than you know.

I started getting some messages on "the" Facebook from followers asking if they had won. Thank you for stalking me. The last couple of weeks have been crazy. I just got all of my grades in yesterday. As much as I love spending time adding and subtracting numbers, grading is the last glamorous part of a college professor's job. Plus, my ass has been busy training once again. I am really getting back into the swing of things after a month and a half of relative laziness. Know how that feels? Yeah. Like you've been hit by a truck. Around ten o'clock at night, my energy level resembles that of a tree sloth.

Congratulations Laura. Send me an email to let me know which Lazer helmet you would like.


A BIG THANK YOU to Lazer for allowing me to have this super-awesome giveaway on my blog.

For anyone who did not win, have no fear! Contact me about how you can receive a 20% discount on a new Lazer helmet!

More soon. Train Smart!

The Friday Top Five: The Top Five Greatest Tunes About Rock n' Roll

The Friday Top Five: The Top Five Greatest Tunes About Rock n' Roll


As someone who actually teaches a course titled "The History of Rock and Roll," I feel a unique sense of entitlement with all things rock& roll. In fact, I have self-appointed myself the absolute authority on all things rock and roll. I mean, after all, Michael Jackson dubbed himself "The King of Pop," and Howard Stern declared he was "The King of All Media," why should I not be Dr. Rock and Roll? I mean let's face it, I even have the official name plate on my door.


I know I will receive some comments and other suggestions for this list... I'm looking at you Jeff and Rock Star.

Picking the five best songs ever written about rock and roll is a lot like picking my favorite dish containing lobster. I mean, does it matter? I heard a comedian once talk about how lobsters completely got the short end of the stick. He went on to say, "...when God was creating all the animals, he said, "Okay, lobster. I'm going to make you red, and give you these little claw things on the front. Yeah, that's it. (muffled voice) Oh, yeah, and the most intelligent creatures on the planet are going to find you absolutely delicious."

I decided to base my list on songs that really celebrate rock and roll for what it is; a subversive, ass-kicking, stick-it-to-the-man, in-your-face, "My amplifier goes to eleven," form of musical expression.
I had to eliminate tunes with "Rock and Roll" in the title that were played by fringe rock and roll bands at best, like The Velvet Underground. I love the Velvet Underground, but they are about as rock & roll to me as say, The Cure, or Elvis Costello.

So, I had to rule out tunes like "I'm Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band" by the Moody Blues, and "So You Want to Be A Rock and Roll Star" by Tom Petty. While peripherally tunes about rock and roll, they do not speak to the true nature of what it means to bang your head and feel the power of guitar distortion. 

5) For Those About to Rock, AC/DC: How cool is it that those of us who have never served in the armed forces can still be saluted? This tune from the 1981 album of the same name features starts with lead singer, Brian Johnson, engaged with a little antiphonal (call and response) between himself and the band. The music is raw, heavy, heavily influenced by R& B guitar licks that are predictable, but tasty.

4) I Love Rock and Roll, Joan Jett: This tune feels nostalgic because her lyrics "I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the jukebox baby. I love rock n' roll, so come an' and take your time an' and dance with me" harkens back to a time when you could actually pay for tunes on the jukebox without having to take out your ATM card and take money out.

3) Rock and Roll Music, Chuck Berry, Look, Chuck Berry is unequivocally the architect of rock and roll. There would be no rock guitar if it were not for Chuck Berry. Who would the Beatles cover, and Brian Wilson—of the Beach Boys—rip off if were not for Chuck Berry? He explains in the song how rock&roll has a backbeat, and if you want to dance with him, it has to be rock& roll music that you're listening to.

2) Long Live Rock, The Who: A tribute to rock and roll artists dead or alive, this tune mixes some honkey tonk, with good ole' fashion ass-kickin' rock and roll to reaffirm that rock and roll is here to stay.

1) Rock and Roll, Led Zepplin: Proof that when you spend enough time away from rock n' roll, you really need it. I feel this way every morning when I need my jazz fix. I have to sit down at the piano in the a.m. and unleash some demons. I spend and hour and a half playing tunes, improvising, and getting my daily therapy before I go out there and face the ever-increasing sarcasm of la vie quotidienne.


TRAINING:


Hey, guess what? My ass is IN gear and I am training hard again. This year, it does not appear that I will be facing some of the same kinds of stresses as previous seasons. Let me recap the last two seasons for you:

2009: My father passes away a day before his 81'st birthday. It came unexpectedly. This put a bit of a damper in my training. I ran the Musselman HIM less than two weeks later.

2010: Left a steady academic position I was in for ten years after completing my doctorate to take a one year position and pray that it would turn into something more permanent. It did. The stress of applying for gigs, and reapplying for my position left me spent and struggling to find time last season. Had an injury that kept me from running for about eight weeks. Oh, I decided to coach my son's baseball team last summer. What the hell was I thinking?

2011: Have some major writing to do this year. I have a couple of huge commissions on the burner that I have to get done. Unfortunately, I prefer writing and training in the morning. Finding balance is going to be difficult.


Coach Kelly has me hitting it pretty hard already. I like that. There is something to be said for ramping up slowly, but I really dislike waiting until, say, April to start having any significant long runs.

I did a 2800 yard swim yesterday, followed by an hour of interval work on the bike. I have also been doing some weight training this pre-season. I use to be a strength athlete and I trained pretty hard. I miss pumping iron, but it has been a really long time since I've bench pressed, or did dumbbell flys and my chest is absolutely killing me.

I think I am going to run a 5K this weekend. It will be fun to go out there and really test myself early. I have not run a 5K in years. Isn't that crazy? I have been more interested in running 10K's. Something about going out there and running fast enough to elicit vomiting really scares the hell out of me. A little vomiting never hurt anyone.

I was pretty excited about my recent heart rate test. After warming up for 15 minutes and doing 3 short 30-second intervals, I ran hard for twenty minutes. I remember reading something years ago that someone wrote about how to run faster. This coach once said, "in order to run faster, you need to run faster," and that is exactly what I did.


I have to admit, I don't envy all of you who live in warm-weathered locales who have to deal with heat and humidity all year round, but I am not excited about having to sit my ass on a trainer in my basement during the winter. Ugh!

More soon. Train Smart!





Training is going swimmingly. Pun intended.

The Friday Top Five: The Top Five Things You Give Up When You Become A Parent

5) Being Cool: Although some parents try desperately to remain cool by declaring to all the world that  they would "would never be caught dead in a minivan," having an infant pee, poop, and vomit on you makes what type of ride you're rolling in the least of your problems. You have to worry about whether anyone at work can smell that vomit on your clothes because you were too tired to change them on account of staying up all night wondering why how your child will cry all evening for you then manage to sleep all afternoon when you need to run errands.

4) Listening to your music in the Car: I have tried desperately to indoctrinate my children to my musical aesthetic. It has worked for the most part. Sometimes, it is a little embarrassing. I mean, I remember my boys singing "Brass Monkey" at some pretty inopportune times as well. Now, my youngest wants to hear her Suzuki violin CD and everyone in the car will sing Lightly Row, Twinkle Little Star (to the rhythm of "Mississippi hotdog"—a personal favorite of mine). I have also listened to enough Disney tunes in the car with the kids that I have temporarily "misplaced" the CD... perhaps forever.

3) Reasoning: It is nearly impossible to try to reason with five year old. Their brains—although amazing sponges—do not function quite the same way as a fairly well-adjusted adult. I use "fairly adjusted" here, because, let's just face it, all of us are still recovering from the trauma of are dysfunctional childhoods. Children believe that are at the center of the universe and that everyone and everything should revolve around them. Forget trying to speak sensibly to a screaming toddler. What I have learned is that inconsolable screaming over
not having the right dinner fork or wrong socks to wear with their school clothes is usually a result of on of two things:

                        1) child is hungry
                        2) child is tired

Here is a diagram of how the average child thinks:

2) Sanity: Yeah, wifey and I left this at the turnstile long ago. (I am not even sure what that means). All I can attest to is that having young, fragile lives to take care of every second of the day is a daunting task. There are times when I have been so crazed trying to get the kids ready to do something that I leave the house without remembering to bring my computer, or lunch, or brain to work with me.

1) Sleeping In: Yeah, forget this completely. Sleeping in when you have small children means waking up past 7 a.m. I remember the first time we had to set a mandatory "sleep in" time with my oldest son. He came into our bedroom and climbed into bed with me and asked if we could go downstairs and play. It was 6:30. I said "No, buddy. We have to sleep until seven o'clock." He nestled in right next to me and went back to sleep.... or so I thought. As soon as the clock hit 7 a.m., he turned around with his
eyes wide open and said "Okay!  It's seven o'clock daddy, let's go downstairs!" Ugh!


Training: Training is going pretty well, as in I am finally training and not just cobbling together a bunch of half-assed workouts and feeling good about myself. Guilt has a way of turning the screw and

My recent delve back into the world of training/self-flaggalation has been directly linked to a few different factors:

1) I was tired feeling like out-of shape. If I intend on keeping my ridiculous Ironman like diet (which I have absolutely no intention of departing with), then I thought that perhaps I should start training more consistently. I am self-motivated, but I needed some time off to regroup after Rev3 Full Cedar Point to reassess what I wanted to focus on this season.

2) I have a coach. I am now trained by Coach Kelly over at T2Multisport. The cool part about training with Kelly is that I have known her for a long time. We went to graduate school together some.... hmm, 12 years ago!

3) Work: This semester has been incredibly crazy, not to mention the fact that we moved twice in the span of two months. We are settled now, but it made training insane.

I have some lower back pain that I have been wrestling with. I could not figure out where it was coming from. I thought that perhaps it was a result of bumping up the training again. Wifey's back has also been hurting her. We have been giving each other nightly massages. Bonus.

Last night I finally figured out where all my pain is coming from. I knew that is must be some movement that I have been doing because it is really localized. While I sit in my office, I often throw my feet up on top of a chair—as I am sometimes sitting in front of my computer for hours out of my day—and write. Last evening, I noticed that my torso was having to twist around to put my feet up and that the numerous hours I have spent in that position have caused a great deal of pain. It reminded me of when I was a graduate student at the Ithaca Conservatory and I spent the summer painting houses. I was young then (with more hair), and I spent hours on a ladder painting trim with my arm stretched over my head. I didn't notice anything at the time until the next morning when I got up and my neck was absolutely killing me.

The Rest:


My youngest has graduated to her first real violin after spending a few weeks on the noodle-roni box. So awesome! Watch out, Vanessa Mae!

Lazer Awesomness! Tardiz Helmet Giveaway!

Friends! (Triathlon nerds and their supporters)

Amazing news. 

The fine folks over at Lazer have once again allowed me to giveaway another one of their super fast—and fashion conscious—Lazer Tardiz aero helmets. 

In case you missed my review of the Lazer Tardiz helmet you can find it here.

ontzagwekkend! (Dutch for awesome, at least according to Google)


I find this funny, given that the Dutch word for "Awesomeness" according to Google, is "awesomeness." But I digress. 


I decided that I wanted to do another giveaway via my blog because on any given day, about a quarter to half of the hits are from people going to the review of the Lazer helmet that I wrote. Surprisingly, I am unbelievably popular in Laos and Senegal. Who knew. 

I love my Lazer helmet. It is zeer comfortabel! 


So, here is the skinny:


1. Go to the Lazer website and then come back and leave a comment
telling me which Lazer Tardiz helmet design you like most AND when you would wear it. (1 entry)

2. Be a follower of my blog, leave a separate comment letting me know
who you are. (1 entry)

3. Become a fan of Lazer Helmets on Facebook. Leave a seperate
comment letting me know. (1 entry)

4. Post this contest on your blog, leave a separate comment letting meknow you've done so. (1 entry)




I will do a random drawing next Sunday, December 11th. 


Good luck!

Blogs, Bambini, And Bonking And The Friday Top Five

Blogs:


It's not me, it's you. Really. 


Look, it's not that I don't love you, it is just that I need a better way of managing all of my fellow bloggers. Currently, I sift through ALL 170 of my dedicated followers and try to hit each of the blogs on a rotational basis. This proves tedious. What makes it tedious is that Blogger opens up this window with a link to their blog. Actually, often I can not even get a link to the blog. This is especially annoying when you would like to reciprocate the blog love you just received. Then, there are times that I get to these blogs, only to find out that they have since removed it, or they have not written a post in about three months. Still, much of the problem with not hitting everyone's blogs effectively lies in my inability to manage them. 


So!  I am open for suggestions on how to do this most effectively in Blogger. Any thoughts? Is there an effective way to make links to all the blogs that I read? I see blog menus at the top of some blogs that allow for the reader to easily click on a blog. This seems like it would take a computer science degree, or an especially large amount of time trying to figure out. 

Bambini:


Wifey and I have the best children in the world. Now, don't get me wrong. Just the other day, I was having lunch with my friend Kelly and I asked her if she ever wants to put a muzzle over her children's mouths because they drive her to the brink of insanity. I think we both agree, that while we love our children unconditionally, that we sometimes wish that our houses came with round cushioned sound proof rooms. 


However, while there is certainly a lot of insanity going around, they do manage to fill our lives with an unbelievable amount of joy and humor. Our children say the funniest things. For instance, yesterday morning, Stella looks over at wifey sitting at the kitchen table and says "Mommy.... daddy's triathlon stuff is all over the couch!"  I came home from work last week and Julian came running to the door telling me that he had a special performance that he and his sisters were going to perform for me and mommy that evening. The kiddies have two parents that are artists. They recently attended a concert that wifey and I were in in which I made a bunch of my own instruments and improvised on several instruments throughout the performance. Julian had decided that he was going to spend the day building his own set of musical instruments before I arrived home from work that evening. Check out a small part of the performance:

Bonking: 


I had a really rough run on Saturday morning. I went out for my usual 10k, but completely bonked at mile four. Like, as in, my heart rate was stratospheric. I think it was the result of: 1) Not being adequately hydrated. Imagine that. Me. Not adequately hydrated. The guy that went to the hospital twice—one of those times being personally chauffeured by my local volunteer ambulance service—over the span of five years. 2) Not enough rest. Yeah, not only had I not gone to bed early enough all last week, but I wake up far too early on account of our kids deciding that they want to make as much noise as humanly possible during the wee small hours of the morning. 


THE FRIDAY TOP FIVE:


The Friday Top Five: The Top Five Things That My Children's Generation Will Never Know:


I think every generation probably looks at the next and thinks how fortunate they are to never have the opportunity to be able to do things that they were able to experience. Those pioneer work ethic folks that grew up before the turn of the century probably felt bad for their children who would never know how to churn butter, live without indoor plumbing, and never experience the natural glow of gas lamps. Having grown up during the 1970's and 1980's, I am really a gen-exer. Thus, my list will represnt the poor taste and bias of a disillusioned generation having had to live through both bell-bottoms and Cyndi Lauper: 


5) The Adult Magazine: Look, whether for better or worse, one of the rites of passage for a teenage boy was the shame and humiliation they had to suffer going into an adult bookstore to get a glimpse, or purchase an adult magazine. With the proliferation of pornography on the internet, it seems that those days no longer exist. 


4) Vinyl: I was part of the last generation of teenagers going out to purchase albums. I always chose albums over tapes. My friends thought I was crazy, but there were two reasons for this:

1) Album art is pretty kick-ass. They either have to scale everything down to fit on a tape cover—or CD for that matter—or completely eliminate some of the material. That is lame. Album covers were sometimes provocative, humorous, or grotesque. Whatever the case, when I was a teenager, I would spend hours in a record store looking at the cover art of albums. It was my way of getting my artistic fix if I was unable to actually purchase the album, which was most often the case. 

2) You could always tape the album as soon as you brought it home. I had this crazy idea that I could tape all my albums and when one of the tapes started wearing out, then I could just record it on another tape, thus, preserving the life of my album. 


3) Arcades: Sure, arcades still exist, but not like they did back when I was growing up. Games were generally only a quarter to play. About ten years ago, a bunch of high-priced arcade/bars starting opening up in large, trendy metropolitan areas around the country selling  "points" on cards depending on how much of your hard earned money you were willing to part with. Wifey and I went to one of these places. After putting just $5 on our card, we realized that was only good for, hmmm, two games. I remember going to the mall as a teenager with a couple of dollars. That was my afternoon. It was usually a combination of Joust, Dig Dug, and Galaga. I really had to pace myself with my two dollars, otherwise I would be watching other people play for the remainder of my afternoon. I would have to comb the mall visiting Spencer Gifts, looking at posters of Samantha Fox and nameless poster models in scantily clad clothing with my friends. 


The games today are ridiculously sophisticated. When I was learning how to play Mario Kart a couple of years ago with my boys, I found the learning curve really steep. It moves fast. For the life of me, I can not understand how more people are not suffering from neurological disorders as a result of prolonged exposure to these psychedelic video game experiences. 


Nowadays, kids can sit indoors, all day on their Wii's, Crackstations, or other video gaming devices. As if nerds were not isolated enough, now nerds sit on their couch all day eating crap and playing video games, because mom and dad do not want to bother being parents. Look, I am not defending video games at all, but at least when I was a kid, we would have to stand to play them. More, we actually interacted with other nerdy kids about the best way to defeat that bad dude on the fifth screen of Kung Fu Master. 


There was recently an exhibit at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, of on hundred old video games like Tron (my personal favorite), Pole Position, Bezerk, Defender, etc. The exhibit was so popular–especially with nerds that fall into my demographic–that they actually purchased the exhibit. Do you realize that we will be the first generation of octogenarians playing Madden?

2) Pay Phones/Phones with Cords: I will never forget the first time I realized that I had to actually bite the bullet and purchase a cellular phone. It was gigantic and had an antennae that I had to pull up. I actually remember rotary phones. 


1) Rock and Roll: The only way my children will ever understand what rock and roll is will be my me playing it and talking to them about it. There are no rock bands anymore. Seriously. Can you name one? A rock band. You know... like The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. I had a conversation with one of my classes the other day about how we are still talking about Led Zeppelin forty years later. How many bands from their generation do you think will be current forty years from now? We will look back on Maroon Five and Dave Matthews as horrible sociological experiments. The idea of rock and roll being dead brings up an even more interesting question. How will we ever experience the work of The Who again? 


In modern dance, there exists several repertory companies that keep the work of seminary figures in the modern dance world alive, such as Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Jose Limon, and Merce Cunningham. Are there going to be Rock and Roll repertory companies, or are we only going to know what theses bands sound like from video and audio performances? 


Training:


Okay, we have some unbelievable, unseasonably warm weather here in western New York. The sun has been shining all weekend with temperatures approaching the 60's!  In late November! Ah, global warming does have its perks. I start my official season training on Monday. Can not wait. Looking forward to getting the official ball rolling.


 More soon. Train Smart!

The Friday Top Five: The Five Worst 80's Artists

Remember the 1980's? I do. Skinny leather ties, John Hughes films (I was no-so-secretly in love with Molly Ringwald), leg warmers worn over jeans, Atari, and Garbage Pail Kids (wifey still has a huge mint collection of them in the basement). Those were among some of the coolest trends that transpired from an era that gave rise to the perm and copious amounts of Aqua Net hair spray. It was sometimes difficult to distinguish the faces of many of the girls in my high school because the feathered bangs and porcupine-like hairdos negated their faces. 

To be fair, there were some cool things that emerged  from  the 1980's. The 1980's were the golden years of both New Wave and Hip Hop. Bands like New Order, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello and Art of Noise (named after the famous Luigi Rusollo manifesto of 1913) meant that nerdy keyboard players who previously got no love from screaming coeds attending their concerts, were now nerdy keyboard players that still got no love from screaming coeds, but were at the cutting edge of popular culture. It was this decade that invited a whole generation of white middle class suburban kids to wear baggy pants and imitate the subversive underground hip hop culture that was emerging by adopting the gesticulations and jargon of artists like RUN DMC and LL Cool J. The 80's ushered a new dance style of movement referred to as breakdancing. With Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo as my inspiration, I spent countless hours perfecting my moonwalk  and windmill. I am proud to say that I can still throw it down and in the same awkward way nearly thirty years later. 

There was, however, some really terrible music that emerged during this era. Listed below are the top five songs that I am embarrassed to even say I know. If these artists were never to happen, I think the musical landscape of the 1980's would be a far better place:

#5) Mister Mister: Yeah, so take those broken wings and fly the heck out of here, because that song is wickety-wack. What made this band most possibly most embarrassing was the post-Bing Crosby-crooner-like lyricism that said "I am trying to be Steve Perry, but I am just not that cool." Interestingly enough, the band members all went on to have pretty decent careers in music afterwards, writing hit songs for artists like Madonna, Whitesnake, and Rod Stewart. However, lead guitarist and bassist, Richard Page, released a Christmas EP in 2010. Christmas albums are the official death of an artist's career. 

#4) Night Ranger: This San Francisco based pop-rock band quintet's most popular radio hit was the power  ballad "Sister Christian" which peaked at #5 in 1984. They are still doing it after all these years. Nice, old guys in leather pants. Move over Loverboy!

#3) Toad the Wet Sprocket: Years ahead of their time, I like to define them as the slightly less sophisticated Dave Matthews Band of their generation. You know, really Wonderbread. I am sure that the same things that made their music attractive to scores of soccer playing teenagers in the 80's are also what make Dave Matthews attractive to this generation of musically misinformed college coeds. 

Oh, you Dave Matthews apologists, don't get me started. So many of my students ask, "Yeah, but they are such talented musicians, right?" They might be, but Yngwie Malmsteen has great facility on the guitar, but he is still embarrassing. I am not going to front. I own a CD though. 

#2) Richard Marx: Did you know that his debut album yielded four hit singles and went on to sell four million copies? Don't even pretend like you did not rock it out in your mom's minivan to "Don't Mean Nothing," and I am quite confident his "Hold on to the Nights"track made it onto that mix tape you made the girl you were going to spend the rest of your life with in ninth grade. His second album, Repeat Offender, knocked Prince off of the number one position. Prince!  Who is cool and can play his proverbial ass off! Repeat Offender went triple platinum in a number of months and eventually went on to sell five million albums. Blame it on the emergence of Gangsta' rap, but unfortunately Rick never attained the same level of success he enjoyed with his first two albums. In 2006, he appeared on the Fox television show "Celebrity Duets." Although the Fox network is known for its quality programming like Who Want to Marry a Multi-Millionaire, appearing on a Fox reality television show is kind of like making a Christmas album—the kiss of death.

#1) Rick Astley: Rick Astley falls into the category of artists whose songs all sound the same. Among the artists belonging to the dedicated club of making all of their music sound the same are ZZ Top, Dave Matthews Band, and Howard Jones. The best thing that Rick Astley has contributed to popular culture is the "Rick-Rolling" phenomenon. He defines the quintessential white man dance. 

Who are your bottom five?

TRAINING:

We have all been there as athletes. You know, those times during the year when you are trying to compress the six million things that you want to do into a 24-hour period. What is up with this rotation of the earth being so quick? I have to admit though, now that we have been dealing with 24-hour days our whole life, it makes the idea of even having a slightly longer day confusing, and possibly, downright problematic. I mean. have you considered how perfect our clocks look with five numbers nestled on either side of those hemispheres between the twelve and the six? What would it look like to have even one more hour on that clock? Yeah, clearly not right.

My training the past couple of weeks have been pretty decent. The guilt of taking some downtime and continuing to eat as if I were still training for an iron distance event has caught up to me. To be honest, I clearly have to start training my proverbial ass off again, because I am not about to give up my 3500 calorie pancake breakfast with real New York State male syrup anytime soon. I have started to Rev my engines once again and start thinking about next season. My work-induced "downtime" during the month of October has officially left me hungry for more pool time and long runs.

It is shaping up to be a beautiful weekend here in western New York. I might get out for my last November ride of the season this weekend. Almost all the way through November and still no snow!

More soon. Train Smart!