Category Archives: Personal stuff

Sex & Drugs & Rock&Roll? I lived the last part anyway…

Personal stuff

What’s more embarrassing than some of the stuff you did in your past? How about seeing all those old people trying to re-live it today! Who are they????!!!

Funny to consider that I was rumored to be one of four graduates of UC Santa Cruz in the 70s who didn’t do drugs or even smoke grass, yet I saw these guys at least a dozen times in 3 years. I’ll never forget the first time hearing “White Punks on Dope” live; the excitement as it rose to its finale, with the Stanford Marching Band on stage even, a woman on trapeze swinging through the air overhead, Fee Waybill with his foot-high platform shoes. It was so… real. Never before or since had I seen an audience get into it so heavily.

It was the age of sex & drugs & rock & roll, although only the rock & roll applied to me. I guess, since I remember the 70s, I really wasn’t part of it. That’s what they say anyway, but I don’t think that’s true.  And how would they know anyway?

I rarely play The Tubes anymore; for that matter, I don’t listen to music in general nearly as much as I ought to. I say that because, whenever I do actually “listen” to music, I really enjoy it. What is it that’s so compelling about TV that you’re worried if you don’t have it on, you’re missing something? Heck, The Tubes even had a song for that- “TV is King.”

I wish I had the girl with the bouncy hair
We’d ride off in a brand new car
Or fly a plane somewhere
Like probably Jamaica
I brush my teeth, shampoo my hair, and shave my face
Apply the necessary aerosol
In the appropriate place
And we’ll spend the night together watching television

I can’t turn off my–television
Don’t really know why–television
TV is king
You’re my everything

Isn’t that the dream? Amazing how little has changed since 1979, when their “Remote Control” album came out. The Tubes arguably invented “punk” rock, and even penned a song a few years later exclaiming “I was a punk before you.” And they were. But in a stylized, artistic & sarcastic manner that appealed on an intellectual level.

The Tubes fit into a special box all their own and didn’t really mesh with my general preference for Progressive English Rock, other than arguably pretentious, overly-intellectualized lyrics. The Tubes were all about making fun of the audience, and themselves.

King Crimson, Procol Harum, early Genesis, Renaissance, Caravan, not the usual stuff people listened to back then. I used to go to a record store in Los Gatos, The Galactic Zoo, to get the import versions of albums because they were supposed to be pressed better and came out two weeks earlier than the US-manufactured records. Musically these groups were much better than The Tubes. But, nothing quite packs the punch of White Punks on Dope.

Broken toe on Saturday, no ride Sunday, Tuesday morning back on bike!

Personal stuff, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Beautiful view as the fog begins to burn off
A bit of catching up to do. On Saturday, test-riding a bike for a chain-skipping problem, I was successful. I got the chain to skip. Of course, I had to apply a huge amount of power to get it to do so, and when it did, it sent me literally over the handlebars, doing a mid-air flip and landing on my back. I lay there for a minute, doing an inventory, checking to make sure all my parts were intact and movable, before getting up. Left hand and left foot were not happy. Hand not quite so bad, but the foot, the big toe, just didn’t quite feel right. Becky and Kevin talked me into heading to Kaiser ER, which, of course, I rode a bike to. Hey, injured, doesn’t everybody ride a bike to the ER?

Very gross photo of a very gross foot which you might not want to enlarge by clicking on it!
I told the admitting person I thought I had either a sprained or broken toe. She asked what my pain level was, 1 to 10 scale. I said truthfully, 2. She said no way was it broken if pain was only a 2. Tried to explain to her that I don’t typically feel pain from broken bones, but why bother, people don’t get that. Should have told her something like a 7 pain level and probably would have been seen sooner!

They take x-rays; hand is ok, big toe on left foot, what a surprise, it’s broken. And it’s swelling. Fun. Doc tells me to “buddy tape” it, gives me a funny sort of shoe to try to keep the toe from taking much pressure, and tells me someone from podiatry will give me a call in a few days. Unfortunately, as expected, I wasn’t able to ride Sunday because I really couldn’t get a shoe on that foot. I did try. I did fail. It wasn’t just pain; it just wouldn’t fit. Foot looked like a puffer fish. Pretty depressing, not being able to ride on a Sunday, and concerned about how much longer I might be out of commission. Visions of casts for 3 or 4 weeks, that sort of thing.

This morning I took some pre-emptive action against that possibility, by proving I was nuts enough to ride anyway. I used an older shoe of Kevin’s, from back in the day when he fit a much larger size, and rode with that on my left foot, regular shoe on my right foot. Felt a bit weird, sure, but I was able to ride, and that’s the important thing. Especially since I wanted some leverage with any doc that might be telling me I couldn’t.

The doc actually called while I was on the ride; I got back to him later and the news was basically about as good as it could be. First good news- there’s nothing they can do for a toe broken where mine was. No casting. Second good new- I really couldn’t do anything to it that would make it worse or take longer to recover! Riding was fine, especially since cycling shoes have stiff soles, distributing the pressure.

So, things are not so bad. Dodged a close one!