The Media, UFOs in Texas, And... Bigfoot On Mars?

I always find it fascinating when the mainstream media gets hold of one of those stories that they just don't quite know what to do with.

You know the ones I'm talking about, right? Every once in a while one of those events comes along where science fiction seems to cross paths with reality, and all of a sudden you've got a real life Twilight Zone sort of situation on your hands.

Sometime back in the 1990s, these type of stories briefly exploded into our national collective consciousness all at once, and with such force, that UFOs and aliens seemed to be everywhere at once. It seemed you couldn't pick up a magazine or turn on the television without seeing one of those little grey alien images, or hearing the various buzzwords of UFOlogy like "Roswell," "Area 51," or "The Face On Mars."

Thanks to the millennium fever which gripped much of the world at the time, as well as television shows like The X-Files, "the truth" as they say, was definitely out there, even if only for a little while. Still, as quick as the idea of UFOs as a cultural phenomenon came, it just as quickly went away -- but not before it had been permanently etched into our collective consciousness. In other words, a lasting impact had been made.

So, perhaps as a result of that UFOmania of the nineties, when these sorts of stories come along -- as they do every now and then -- they have a unique way of capturing our imaginations. As I said, it is also always interesting to see how the media plays them. About this time last year, we saw one such story about a series of UFO sightings in Chicago, seen by numerous witnesses in broad daylight at Chicago's airport.

The media dutifully reported the story, even if they did so a few weeks after the fact. The television commentators also accompanied their coverage with the usual combination of nudges and winks. The story came, the story went. Yet, at least as far as I know, the Chicago sightings themselves were never adequately explained away.

This month, we have not one, but two such stories that would seem to be ripped straight from the pages of Fate Magazine.

So remember the face on Mars?

Back in the nineties, there was considerable talk among both UFOlogists, various pseudo-scientists, and even a few legitimate researchers about a NASA image that appeared to show a giant stone face carved out on the surface of Mars. Some even compared it to the Sphinx. NASA originally attributed the mysterious face to a trick of light and shadow. Later, they released new images from a later expedition that showed what appeared to be something less strange. To me, it looked like a more eroded version of the same thing, and made me wonder if they actually have wind or dust storms up there. Anyway...

This week, a story broke in the news media about a new image on Mars that potentially could prove even more intriguing. In 2004, NASA's Mars explorer vehicle Spirit captured what appears to be an actual, more or less human-looking life form on Mars. Only this time, they may have unwittingly given the news media some fresh comedic material for their reporting.

I mean, you tell me. How can a story even this potentially explosive be taken seriously when the "Mars Woman" in the photo looks so suspiciously like ... Bigfoot?



Seriously. Compare the picture above, with the now-famous Patterson photo of a purported lady Bigfoot you see below. If the two of these don't qualify for an entry in the latest edition of Seperated At Birth, then I honestly don't know what would.



Something tells me that even the furthest lunatic fringes of the UFO community -- you know, the "I was abducted and anal probed by aliens" crowd -- won't be touching this one.

Which is too bad. Because despite the image's resemblance to something straight out of Harry And The Hendersons, the fact remains that it shouldn't be there at all. Not in a photo taken of the red landscape on a big, red, and supposedly dead planet anyway. My best guess is that by the time you read this, the media will have long relegated this one to a punchline about abominable snowmen, and dropped the story altogether.

Which is actually too bad, because I for one would like to know just what that thing is. Even if it is Bigfoot, how the hell did it get from the backwoods of Oregon to the surface of Mars?

Far more interesting however, are the strange things in the sky being reported in the tiny town (population 15,000) of Stephenville, Texas.

Multiple witnesses in the small town -- including a pilot -- have reported seeing a large, silent craft in the night skies with flashing or strobing lights. It was described by one witness as being "a mile and a half long." Some witnesses also reported seeing the object chased by military jets. Here is a typical example of how the media has played the story:



So yeah, we get it. Even without the giggles, if the military says that it's all much ado about nothing then so it must be. So move along folks, nothing to see here, right?

But here is where the story starts to get a little more interesting. You see, the military has changed its own story here. Which of course isn't anything new when it comes to the military and UFO reports.

In the most famous UFO story of all -- the so-called Roswell incident -- the official explanation for what really crashed there in 1947 has changed several times over the years, with each new version of the story further stretching credibility. In the most recent revision, the "UFO" is said to have been a top secret information gathering balloon, and the "bodies" to be crash test dummies. The only problem with that story is that said "dummies" weren't even being used until a decade later.

In the original version of the Stephenville events, officials were adamant that whatever people were sighting in the night skies wasn't anything of ours. Now, in just the past few days, that story has been changed. As in, "Oops, we forgot to tell you that we actually were flying something up there that night."

Not that the media will be following up on this. After all, there are still more important stories out there to be covered. Can you say Britney Spears? But you have to wonder why the military suddenly changed their story here. If there is anything more to this than meets the eye, you also have to think that they didn't exactly do themselves any favors by drawing new attention to it, just when the media had accepted the original version and moved on.

Kinda makes you go "Hmmm..." doesn't it? Maybe one of those damn things really does have to land on the White House lawn for the media to take it seriously.

Especially, if they find Bigfoot inside.

If and when that happens, we'll keep you posted.

Stumbling Into Town With Steven Adams

Music Review: Steven "Stumbletown" Adams - The Riddle In Doubt

Who woulda' known?

Before I get to this review, a disclaimer of sorts is in order.

Steven "Stumbletown" Adams is actually a guy I know. Or at least I knew.

"Stumbletown," or just plain old Steve as I knew him way back then, was this more or less quiet, unassuming sort of guy that I knew in high school. The truth is, he's a guy I went to probably way too many high school kegger parties with.

I always liked Steve too. We shared a fondness for the seventies glam rock of the day of people like Alice Cooper, David Bowie, and T. Rex for one thing.

But never -- not for one second -- did I suspect that lying inside this guy I used to drink beer at high school parties with, was so much as an inch of actual musical talent. And, boy was I wrong.

You see guys as old as "Stumbletown" Adams is -- he's as old as me for Chrissakes -- are simply not supposed to rock like this. It's against the laws of nature. But on The Riddle In Doubt, Adams' third full length CD -- he started playing music at the ripe old age of 44 -- rock he does. Not only that, Adams is a damn fine songwriter to boot.

On The Riddle In Doubt, Adams combines some of the grungiest sounding guitar riffs this side of Pearl Jam, with the sort of lonely -- and dare I say it, "boozy," -- sort of lyrical place you'd more expect from somebody like Tom Waits. Musically, the album is a bit all over the place, but surprisingly it all works.

The album kicks things right into high gear with it's opening track "Patterns Of Bad Behaviour," which finds Mr. Stumbletown proclaiming that "I have a princess in the castle, cowboys in the saddle, this empty glass my only hassle," all to crunchy New York Dolls sort of riffage (there's that seventies glam influence). It is but the first of many examples of the sort of sophisticated triple phrased lyrics found on this album.

On "Eight Years," Adams turns thing around to tell a hard luck story of how "I screwed up again, I'm just another dog searching for a bone," to some of the sweetest sounding alt-country sort of shit this side of Steve Earle or the Jayhawks. Like many of the songs on The Riddle In Doubt, "Eight Years" seems to take place in a bar (imagine that!).

On the more pensive sounding "Second Hand Smoke," Adams on the one hand pines for the girl who "gets to me like second hand smoke," while on the other hand he seems to be ready to throw in the towel, when he says "I pledge allegiance to resignation".

As for myself, at about this point, I'm actually about ready to resign myself to the fact that this guy I went to school with is, much to my own surprise, a pretty decent songwriter.

It gets even better as the album goes on, and Mr. Stumbletown sings quite emotionally about "crying in a bucket of tears." The guy may not have the greatest vocal register -- hey, neither do Dylan or Neil Young -- but the lyrics here register deep enough for anyone who has actually been there not to leave a dry eye in the house.

The Riddle In Doubt can be ordered through Shakemusic.

If, like me, you like your music hard as life knocks can be, yet taken with the lyrical introspection of the same sort of experience, then I can absolutely recommend "Stumbletown" Adams' The Riddle In Doubt, personal association -- previous or otherwise -- not withstanding.

Like I said, who woulda' known?

The Rockologist Learns To Play Guitar

For as long as I've been both writing and obsessing about music, I suppose it is about time that I learned how to actually play it. So this year, I've decided to finally put my money -- or in this case, my pen -- where my mouth is, and learn how to play the damned guitar.

Not that this decision came about as the result of a mere whim. Oh no. Fate played a very significant hand here. It actually began about three months ago when I won Jimi Hendrix's guitar -- well, sort of anyway.

As part of my day job working in sales for a local music distributor, I spend a lot of time on the road travelling all over the states of Washington and Oregon to call on my accounts. As you might imagine, this takes me to some very interesting places -- particularly when it comes to grabbing a quick bite to eat on the run.

During one such stop a few months back, I was at a lunch spot when I noticed a display for something called "Hendrix Coffee." Yes, you heard me right..."Hendrix Coffee." There were all these different blends, that came in bright purple packages with Jimi's mug plastered on them, and clever names like "Voodoo Child" and of course, "Hey Joe."

Next to the coffee, was this beautiful black Fender Squire Stratocaster and a box where you could enter to win it. Which I did, while waiting for my French Dip sandwich (I passed on the coffee).

The thing is, I never expected to actually win the damn thing.

But low and behold -- and to my absolute surprise -- a few months later I get a call from Jimi's brother Leon (at first I thought it was a prank), telling me I had won. Leon, incidentally, is the apparent CEO of the Hendrix coffee company, and he also plays in a band himself. In addition to the guitar, a Marshall practice amp (nice!), and some of the coffee, my prize package included an autographed copy of Leon's CD Keeper Of the Flame.

Now, I haven't actually listened to Leon's CD yet -- and with song titles like "Jimi And Me," "Voodoo River," and "Purple Flame," I'm not sure I even want to. Between the coffee and the "original" sounding song titles, it's actually kind of easy to start suspecting at least a hint of exploitation there. Being a fan of Hendrix since my childhood -- I actually saw him in concert twice while he was alive, once in Hawaii, and once at Seattle's Sicks Stadium just a few months before he died -- there was also an ever-so-slight element of creepiness about all of this.

Still, in fairness, Leon probably didn't suspect his winner was a guy who moonlights as a music writer on the internet when the guitar (also autographed by Leon), and the rest of the booty was handed over. Anyway, the call was not mine to make at this particular time. All I knew was that I was now the owner of a beautiful new guitar. The question now, was what to actually do with it.

The thing is, as long as I've obsessed about music I've never actually learned how to play. As an armchair critic, I like to think that I can play the role just about as well as anybody. My nerdish obsessiveness with records dates back to childhood, which also means that I've absorbed a considerable amount of knowledge about such things over the years. I've soaked it up like a proverbial sponge. I can quote you things like album titles, labels, and producers right off the top of my head like clockwork.

But I can't play a lick.

As the drummer in my band back in junior high school, I was so bad they actually fired me, and then they made me the singer. The truth is, I really wasn't much better at singing. But with my long hair and pre-beer gut teenager's frame, at least I more or less had "the look." More importantly, I was enough of a natural ham back then, that I had no problem making an ass out of myself as a frontman doing bad imitations of all of Mick Jagger's best moves.

That was then.

So what's an aging Rockologist to do with this kick-ass Fender Squire Strat I've just acquired? Letting it just sit in my living room trophy-style gathering dust and cigarette smoke was simply not an option. On the other hand, it's a little late in the game to try learning something as potentially cumbersome as music theory.
Nope. What was called for here was an instant crash course. I wanted to be Jimi Hendrix right freaking now, dammit!

Besides, if Steven "Stumbletown" Adams, a quiet unassuming sort of guy that I went to high school with -- who never once displayed a hint of musical talent in all the years I spent going to high school keg parties with him -- can put out his own, surprisingly quite good sounding CD (stay tuned for the review), I figured I had as good a shot as anybody. By the way, thanks for the inspiration Steven.

So I turned to the only place I really could. I went out and purchased Guitar For Dummies.

While Jon Chappell's "for dummies" instructional course in guitar doesn't promise you'll be ready for that open slot in Pearl Jam or the Stones anytime soon, it does more or less guarantee you'll at least learn the basics. The DVD version claims to deliver this in 75 minutes. The book takes a bit longer, but is written in the sort of easy to follow language that even a musically challenged guy like me is supposed to be able to grasp.

I purchased both.

So being the sort of instant gratification whore that I am, I pulled up a chair, strapped on my ax (man, it feels cool to say that), and plugged in the DVD first. The good news here is that the easy stuff is, in fact, pretty easy to learn. Once Chappell gets past the no-brainer stuff like how to hold your guitar, and the differences between an acoustic and an electric guitar (hey, I am a music writer right?), I'm absolutely itching to get to the good parts. Like when do we get to play "Stairway to Heaven"?

Of course before we get there, we have to learn how to play actual chords. And as soon as you can say E Chord, damned if I'm not playing my first song, even if it is "Frere Jacques." So far, so good. Changing chords (from a D to an A) for that time honored punk-rock classic "Skip To My Lou" proves a bit tougher (my fingers are starting to hurt for one thing). But so far this whole learning guitar thing is proving to be a piece of cake.

So, just when I'm starting to think that this may not be so tough after all, Chappell pulls out the first obstacle. One that on that first, initial try has me starting to rethink this whole learning how to play the guitar thing.

Now, I've been around seasoned guitar players most of my life. I've sang with them as part of a band, and I've interviewed them as a music journalist for pete's sake. But not a one of them ever told me that learning to play an F chord was such a bitch. Honestly, you've got to be some kind of freaking contortionist to master this thing -- the way you have to curl your ring finger around that last string.

By the time the lessons on the DVD have progressed to playing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore," a song that has five chords (which unfortunately include the dreaded F), Chappell is going a bit too fast for me. The innocuous folk ballad might as well as be some punk rock shit played at Ramones speed. And suddenly I have a new appreciation for how guys like Jimmy Page were able to do this shit night after night, even while stoned out of their minds at times on all matter of pharmaceuticals.

The point at which I almost threw in the towel -- at least for this particular night -- came when Chappell got to the various styles of things like the bass string downstroke, and finger picking. Which kinda sucks because this was also the point where you start to learn cool songs like "Sloop John B" (did I mention that this instructor has a particular thing for songs related to the sea?).

Unfortunately, this didn't matter because I was still stuck back there trying to wrap my baby finger around that damned F chord. Even with the luxury of the pause button on the DVD, I just wasn't ever able to get past that appropriately named "F". And speaking of my fingers, did I mention that they hurt like hell at about this point? I think I know what the Beatles meant now with that whole "I've got blisters on my fingers" thing at the end of "Helter Skelter."

So the good news is I learned to play my first few songs on the gee-tar, even if they were only things like "Frere Jacques" and "Skip To My Lou." Unfortunately, there would be no "Smoke On The Water" or "Stairway to Heaven" on this night. So I'm an impatient bastard -- what can I say?

But I'm not giving up. No, sir.

My new master plan, which commences -- well, whenever -- is to come at this again using the book, rather than the DVD. The way I figure it, that way I can take all of the time I want mastering the dreaded F chord, before moving on to "Sloop John B" and the complexities of finger-picking and the like.

Come hell or high water, I will do this. Can you say "helllllllo, New York?" Madison Square Garden, here I come.

Hey, if "Stumbletown" can do it...

Wish me luck.

Marah's Angels Of Destruction: The First Great Album of '08

Music Review: Marah - Angels Of Destruction (CD)

Two weeks into 2008, and we may already have ourselves the first great record of the year in Marah's great new album Angels Of Destruction!. Actually, I take that back. This is the first great record of 2008.

The thing I cant quite figure out about it however, is whether the record is a bonafide masterpiece, or simply the happy accident that it sounds like so much of the time.

In fact, Angels of Destruction! both feels and sounds at times like Marah's Highway 61 Revisited (the bluesy swagger of "Wild West Love Song"), while at others it more recalls the loose, druggy groove of the Stones Exile On Main Street (though in Marah's case, I'd suspect the drug fueling said groove is more likely good old fashioned booze, than anything as sinister as Sister Morphine).

Either way, you certainly could do a lot worse in the way of points of reference. And Angels of Destruction! grooves for its forty seven minutes and eleven songs like nothing so much as one of those greasy juke joints that seem to populate so many of the songs here.

The thing is, as good as 2005's If You Didn't Laugh, You'd Cry was (and it was damn good), on this album Marah pull off the seemingly impossible of sounding like a much fuller band, while at the same time maintaining a much looser sound that comes closer to their live performances. Perhaps it's the fact that the Bielanko Brothers have added a new keyboard player to the mix (Christine Smith from Jesse Malin's band). All I know is I can't wait to hear these new songs played live.

Speaking of the songs, these are some of the best yet from David and Serge Bielanko. The album opens up with the one-two punch of "Coughing Up Blood" and "Old Time Ticking Away," and right away the albums theme of looking for that old fashioned redemption in all of the wrong places is established.

"Coughing Up Blood," -- which incidentally, rocks like a sumbitch' -- starts off with the ominous lines "up will come the cancer/up come volcanic ash" (think these guys might be smokers?) and ends by stating that "from all the cities I've swallowed/I shall be released." While on "Old Time Ticking Away," we find that from that same darkness "a new day is rising, pure and whole."

That same search for redemption continues on "Angels On A Passing Train," where a keyboard somewhat reminiscent of Del Shannon's "Runaway" punctuates how "your laughter is my Jesus/cut down from the cross," before wagering that "I'll see you in heaven, and raise you two stars."

On ther track "Wilderness," things get far more literal in the biblical sense as the song finds our truthseeker "bleeding from the mouth when I came down from the mountains," and "zapped by some sort of Moses hand shooting lightning." While on the title track, Marah finally concludes that "thru the eye of a needle, we're just trying to sail to heaven on an old shipwreck."

Between all of the sideroads Marah take on the road to redemption of Angels Of Destruction!, you'll most often find them seeking the same truth in the Spanish hostels of songs like "Santos de Madera" or the wine bars of "Songbirdz." But redemptive poetics aside -- and there are far more to found on this great album than those I've quoted here -- this is an album where Marah, to quote Hillary after New Hampshire, seems to have really found their voice.

It is also the first great record of 2008.

Iowa: An Audacious Victory for Obama, A New Begining for America?

Normally, I don't write about politics all that often on these pages. But after watching last night's stunning results in the Iowa caucuses with a considerable amount of awe as they unfolded on my television, I've simply got to ask the question:

Is it just me?

While it is obviously too early to be able to predict anything in what is already -- five days into the new year -- looking to be one of the most fascinating presidential elections that I'll witness in my lifetime, didn't it feel, even if only for the moment, like something absolutely huge had just happened? Like possibly, just maybe, an actual shift in the national political consciousness had just taken place?

I'm not just talking about the fact that this is the first time an African American has won a major presidential contest -- in a largely all-white state no less. Nor am I talking about the fact -- huge as it is -- that Obama is now being regarded as the first African American with a serious shot at actually becoming President of the United States. Substitute gender for race, and you could say much the same thing about Hilary Clinton.

No, I'm talking about something potentially bigger. Much bigger. Something evident not only in Thursday's results on the Democratic side, but on the Republican side as well. Watching the usual cable news pundits try to break down the how and why of the Iowa results -- Obama carried the youth vote (and somewhat surprisingly, the women), while Huckabee took the evangelical Christians seemed to be the conventional wisdom -- everybody seemed to be missing the most obvious point.

The fact that the two newest, freshest faces on each side beat out the more established, better known "names" to me spoke volumes about the mood of the American voting public this year. Although many of the candidates -- Obama included -- may be spouting the "change" mantra as a slogan this year, the American people may finally be actually ready to demand it.

That's how the Iowa results struck me.

It was as though the political consciousness of the nation had finally awakened from a long, prolonged sleep to say that the divisive, partisan politics of the past several years are no longer going to cut it. On the democratic side, the Clinton campaign's thinly veiled attempts to pin everything from past drug use, to Islamic prejudices connected to the name Obama, clearly backfired. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the big bucks and attack ads of the Mitt Romney campaign likewise failed to hold off a late surge for the folksier, more likable everyman Mike Huckabee.

While we are on the subject of Mike Huckabee, what is it I like so much about this guy?

As a life long Democrat, who at this point knows little about Huckabee's actual political views, I'm still relatively certain that I'm going to find little common political ground with anyone described as a social conservative. Still, when I hear him speak about things like wanting to unite the country and having compassion for the working man, I'm actually somewhat inclined to believe it. On an initial look at least, Huckabee strikes me as a sincere, prinicpled man who is the very antithesis of the smarmy politics of expedience that we've become so accustomed to in recent years. Huckabee's brand of "unity" strikes me as being far truer than Bush's "compassionate conservatism."

The thing that amazes me most is that Republicans -- at least the ones in Iowa -- appear to agree.

It's often been said that the original appeal of candidate George W. Bush was his folksiness. That he was a guy a lot of people could envision themselves having a beer with, compared to intellectual wonks like Al Gore or John Kerry. Personally I never bought it, nor did I buy that whole deal where Bush wrapped himself up in the Bible. Something about that whole nervous tick of his...

Huckabee, on the other hand, strikes me as a guy I'd be quite comfortable sharing an adult beverage with -- though as a Baptist preacher, I doubt he even drinks. He just seems to be a genuinely decent guy motivated by principle rather than politics.

The amazing thing is that at least this past Thursday, the Republicans in Iowa seemed to agree. In the party where every damn time they seem to go for whichever slickly packaged poltician is shouting the "God, Guns, and Gays" thing the loudest -- regardless of actual, sincere conviction -- is it possible the nicest guy can actually win?

Well, okay. About that deal with Huckabee playing the bass guitar, you can't tell me that didn't come straight from Bill Clinton's playbook with the sax. Well the guy is from Arkansas after all, right?

I don't get quite the same feeling about Obama. Truth be told, at this point I'm leaning towards John Edwards, and until I've heard a policy speech from Obama that addresses the shrinking middle class, universal health care, and corporate greed as strongly as Edwards does, I'm not likely to change my mind.

Still, even as a lukewarm Edwards supporter at this point, hearing Obama's victory speech in Iowa the other night, you could almost feel a shift in the political wind, if only for that one moment. After that speech, Obama was being likened to Robert F. Kennedy by some of the Friday Morning political Quarterbacks. Hearing that speech it wasn't hard to see why.

If the American people truly have had enough of "politics as usual," as the Iowa results seem to indicate, Obama could actually be the real deal. I know that I'm a lot more impressed with him today, than I was earlier this week.

So I'm no politico. But that speech nearly gave me shivers.

What I do go by a lot though, is the talk I hear in bars and at diners by regular common people. I call it the "bar talk" factor. And the "bar talk" I've heard for the past several months says in a nutshell that they all suck, and we need change. From what I can tell the Iowa results seem to back this up -- with an additional, and emphatic exclamation point saying "we won't get fooled again" (to quote the Who's Peter Townshend).

And while it remains to be seen if this shift in consciousness will actually hold until November, for one night it still felt like nothing less than the overdue awakening of the people from a long sleep.

The earth hasn't quite moved. At least not yet. But on Thursday night, you could almost imagine an American landscape where being a union working stiff doesn't mean you sacrifice babies to Satan while fornicating with the communists. And where being a Christian doesn't mean driving a pick-up truck with a pro-Bush sticker next to the gun rack and the Confederate battle flag sticker. And right now I think we could do a lot worse than Obama's RFK going up against Huckabee's modern day "I Like Ike" come November.

One can only hope.