The hearing-loss blues

I don't know exactly how I converted to the blues. My favorite song when I was 6 was "Bad to the Bone" by George Thorogood. I'm fascinated by the idea that a musical style can embody an emotion, but I'm not usually a fan of subtlety. Here's a list of blues songs so loud you don't have to guess at what the singer is feeling.

Rockin' Daddy by Howlin' Wolf

I started listening to Howlin' Wolf my junior or senior year of high school. I first heard of him on the "Screamin' and Hollerin'" station (now defunct) on accuradio.com. I couldn't believe there was an artist who called himself "Howlin' Wolf" and I'd never heard of him. What's more, the name fit the singer perfectly. He sounded like some big cartoon wolf, growling his lyrics and even howling on choruses.

For a few months, I thought I was the only person on the planet who had heard of him. (That's changed now. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to "Smokestack Lightning" in the office and a co-worker identified it as "the song from the Viagra commercial.") Fortunately, I wasn't the only person who heard of Howlin' Wolf. He influenced blues-rock giants like Cream and the Rolling Stones. This track, done for the Howlin' Wolf London Sessions, was recorded with Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Hubert Sumlin (one of Howlin' Wolf's guitarists) on rhythm guitar, Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones on piano and drums, respectively, and Phil Upchurch on bass. Howlin' Wolf shows a lot of fight for a man in his 60s, and the bass and piano really carry the track.

Act Nice and Gentle by the Black Keys

Shortly after I discovered Howlin' Wolf on Accuradio, a friend told me about Pandora. I tested it out, and it was either on "Howlin' Wolf Radio" or "Ball and Biscuit Radio" that I heard the Black Keys. The music's texture hooked right into my guts. The lonesome slide guitar wailing in the background, the raw, growling guitar and Dan Auerbach's weary but soulful voice again made me wonder why the band wasn't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I listened to track previews of Rubber Factory every time I went to Borders, worried that some secret task force of Black musicians would swoop in, snatch the CD from my hands and punish me for appropriating their music. A little while later, I learned with a shock that Rubber Factory had been released the previous year, and the Black Keys were a couple of geeky white guys from Ohio. I still sometimes wonder if Auerbach got vocal chords transplanted from a 50-year-old organ donor.

Hello Operator by the White Stripes

I never thought Jack White was black for a second. That didn't stop me from appreciating his approach to the blues, though. One great thing about the White Stripes is you seldom have to analyze their music -- what you hear is what you get.

The Gospel According to John by the Soledad Brothers

Oddly enough, I eventually stopped worrying about the Black Key's theft of African American music because the Soledad Brothers were much worse. One of their albums has the Black Panthers logo on it. If anyone is trying harder to be black than Eminem, it's the Soledad Brothers.

The vocals on this track (and pretty much on every track by the Soledad Brothers) suck. Someone here is confusing soul with fake southern accents. Thankfully, the guitars are loud enough to drown them out. The Interstate-inspired guitar is as loud as the White Stripes, but less vicious.

Ventilator Blues by the Rolling Stones

If anyone can find another song with double-tracked vocals and slide guitar, please let me know. When I head this song, I thought some indie band like the Shins or Pinback invented double-tracking, but I'm glad I was wrong.

Vampires and Failures by Grandpaboy

Who is Grandpaboy when he's at home, you might ask. It's Paul Westerberg, former punk rocker. In 2002, Westerberg released Stereo under his own name and Mono under the pseudonym Grandpaboy. Ironically, the tracks on Mono are much richer musically. Westerberg doesn't always counterbalance his vocals, and most of the time comes off as the anemic ghost of Tom Petty, but the ground-shaking bass in this track counteract him perfectly. Westerberg opens up the soundscape with echoes and backup vocals. During the last chorus, it sounds like he's cutting someone's hair with electric clippers.

Turkey and the Rabbit by T-Model Ford

Once, as a misssionary in Ishigaki, I knocked on the door of an old woman. We started talking to her about the meaning of life. She didn't seem to understand our broken Japanese, but seemed happy to talk to us. "Hey now," she said, "I'm, you know, I'm--" She paused, and I was sure she was going to say she was an ancestor worshiper and not interested in Christianity. "I'm 105 years old."

T-Model Ford is somewhere between 88 and 92 years old and can't remember his own birthdate. Every once in a while, you meet someone so old you can't understand a thing they say -- but you can't stop listening, either, as if they're chanting some spell to keep you entranced. I'd love to see someone try to tell him to turn his music down.

Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan with Albert King

I really can't tell what's different about this version of Pride and Joy, other than the bass is cranked way up. It makes me feel like I'm jumproping with moonboots on. There might be another guitar part, some piano in there, but I can't really hear it. Vaughan exhibits here one of the only things white bluesmen ever invented -- he sings the song exactly the same as he always does.

Catfish Blues by Jimi Hendrix

I never considered the advantages of being a catfish until I head this Muddy Waters cover. While I'm not sure of the logic involved, I've since said I wished I was a catfish many times. Sometimes several times a day (ask Sarah).

Living pregnant: One day at a time.

This is one of the only topics I have to discuss right now, mostly because it completely overshadows and consumes anything else I may relate to you. It's a big deal bringing life into the world. It takes a lot of work on everybody's part, emphasis on the bodies part. Steve has to contend with a hormonal rollercoaster for a wife, I slowly watch my body morph and cry about cooking food and Charlotte has to grow inside me. Here is a snippet of a typical pregnant day.

10:00-11:00 am
Wake up at the crack of dawn for a PL (pregnant lady). Hobble to the bathroom, just like the 19 times throughout the night, as my sweet baby angel kicks my bladder for fun. Cheerios are my breakfast food of choice, they are tasty and easy to get together. The last thing on my to-do list at this early hour would be attempting to care about making something stupid like pancakes or scrambled eggs. Eat the nutritious cereal in bed and the most important TV shows for the next one-to-two hours. This is a routine more or less guaranteed to prevent harm from befalling other people who I may see if I had to leave my house earlier than two pm.

Between 1:30 and 4:00 pm
Time to work it out! Monday, Wednesday and Friday mean a slow waddle up to the gym at USU. I'm secretly hoping that others immediately notice I'm pregnant, thus explaining the crazy huffing and puffing I make travelling up the 90 degree slope of a walkway. I have definitely contemplated saying "Don't worry, it's because I'm expecting a bowling ball" every few seconds to myself on this trek.
Can't run anymore, for my lower back screams with every step. I had to make the switch to the elliptical machines, something I would have scoffed at before pregnancy. But they are starting to kick my butt hard core. Mostly I just think the same thing over and over to make it through "You can do it baby Charlotte. Good job. We aren't going to die today!"

around 3 or 4 pm till... whenever
Chores. I may or may not get to those. Cooking. That is a definite possibility, but I'm comfortable eating peanut butter, Nutella and honey on bread for tonight. About once a week I'm pretty motivated to make something so delicious that Steve jumps up exclaiming excellence in cooking. That, uh, hasn't happened yet because I'm no Paula Dean, but then he probably wouldn't have married me if I was a 60-something southern woman. I'll try pretty hard to make a scrumptious whatever, and I may or may not break down halfway through for any number of reasons. I'm tired or I break something or it isn't turning out or I hate cooking and we'll be eating applesauce till we die.

After dinner till my body falls unconsious
I may crochet something awesome -- excellent work! We might watch a movie together in which I secretly cry because sad music is playing. I will certainly talk to Steve about my day, either really cheerfully or with snot running down my face. Fall asleep after drinking gallons of water to quench the never-ending thirst, searing my back with rice bags to dull the sciatica and tossing for a good 30 - 40 minutes. But my sweetheart always says he loves me at some point, that I'm beautiful and how proud he is of what I'm doing for our family.

I give the hottest smoochies

UPDATE: One night at the Good Time Yum-Yum Stand Up Show at Logan Out Loud, I found out Kendall Pack was Stu's anonymous critic.

I found the following flier on a bulletin board in the Family Life building on campus at Utah State (click for full size):

I blacked out Stu's number before posting, but it looked like a legitimate 801 number. I thought about calling him to see if the flier was sincere or a prank from his buddies, but I never did. Right next to Stu's brave foray into bulletin-board dating, someone posted a response:

I felt a little bad for Stu, but holy moly, what a critique! This kind of interaction fascinates me. I'll bet Mark Zuckerberg saw something like this and said, "Hey, this should be a website," and invented Facebook.

Free Book Review: ‘Penrod' by Booth Tarkington

Penrod tests home-made Smallpox medicine on a rival.

Free Book Review highlights public domain books you'd actually pay for if you had to.

Penrod, published in 1914, initiates readers in the secrets of the worst boy in town. (Population: 135,000.) The 11-year-old hero is more than a caricature ala Dennis the Menace, though. He's a compressed storm of human emotions — pride, jealousy, love and humiliation — familiar to adults but fresh to children. Never has an author written about young boys with greater insight and empathy.

Before putting this book on your kids' holiday reading list, however, read it yourself. Much has changed over the past century, and here's an abridged list of sit-down discussion topics Penrod might prompt:

—Racism
—Cruelty to animals
—Prescription drug abuse
—Slander
—Alcoholism
—Bullying

To his credit, Tarkington stands firmly in Penrod's corner throughout his misadventures and reveals his motives. Set in a time when corporal punishment governed American children, few of Penrod's adventures end without a lashing, but Tarkington questions the justice and efficacy of the rod.

This is a boy's lot: anything he does, anything whatever, may afterward turn out to have been a crime — he never knows.

Penrod's dense prose proves a minimalist style isn't always better. Tarkington builds the book with scholarly phrases and euphemisms, telling each story the way Penrod could if he had the words. Absurd situations like a tar-fight in the street are conveyed with straight-faced gravity, reminding the reader the power of emotions as felt by an 11-year-old boy.

The brevity of each story offsets the sophisticated style, though, and I had no trouble finishing the book. Rather than bend Penrod's tale to an adult's attention span, Tarkington instead stitched together a series of semi-related short stories to form a pleasing whole. The format suits the main character, whose life itself is a string of fits and phases. Penrod bounces back from the consequences of his exploits, no matter how spirit shattering or publicly humiliating. The author explains this remarkable resilience:

With a boy, trouble must be of Homeric dimensions to last overnight. To him, every next day is really a new day.

Though there's no overarching plot, the somewhat sudden ending is powerful enough to satisfy the reader.

Penrod reminds us that emotion is universal, love can be new and the best stories come from a bold life. Though nearly a century has passed since Penrod's glorious 12th birthday, there are still some lessons you can only learn from the worst boy in town.

Penrod is freely available for download in multiple formats from Manybooks.net and Gutenberg.org. An audiobook of questionable quality is available from Librivox.org.