In the late afternoon, a ray of light that originated in the heart of the sun roughly twelve minutes ago slips through the blinds behind me and re-shapes itself as six-inch tall, black-and-white dappled column on the upholstered walls of my stale cubicle. This interspace traveler is my only connection to the world outside this office, and it exists for barely a dozen minutes a day in a constantly shifting pattern of cubes and polyhedrons too thin for me to perceive as anything other than a flickering, two-dimensional representation of its life-giving glory.
I find it no great coincidence that the universe has seen fit to place my late-afternoon visitor's point of departure at just such a distance from my own position in this universe; roughly twelve minutes is the exact same slice of time it takes Hawkwind to power through "Time We Left This World Today" on the digitally-restored edition of Hawkwind's live album, Space Ritual.
There are no coincidences when it comes to Hawkwind. Light and sound move at completely different rates of speed - only the passage of time seemingly links the occurrence of light's passage to Earth and Hawkwind's passage through a song. But look closer - time is the link, and Hawkwind is time. One must accept that Hawkwind is, was and will be; that is all. The Church of Hawkwind makes no rules for its pilgrims. The music is the sacrament, the holy days occur whenever you take the sacrament, and there is no dogma other than "keep an open mind" -- a state that can be obtained merely by taking the sacrament. Hawkwind is, was and will be; that is all. Time is, was and will be; that is all. Hawkwind is Time is Time is Hawkwind. Any confusion you are experiencing is purely temporal.
Step into my four-dimensional parlour and let us discuss further the transubstantiation of Time via the mystery of Dave Brock's pineal gland.

Nostalgia.
It’s not as good as I remember it.
In the summer of 1985, my musical world was tumped on its pear-shaped ass by the arrival of thrash. Thrash was terrifying – a new species formed from 80 percent metal, 20 percent hardcore punk. The joke metalheads shared prior to the birth of thrash was that hardcore sounded like metal played by people who didn’t know how to play their instruments; it was all speed, no technique or skill. Well, unless you count slam dancing as a skill. Thrash took hardcore’s balls-out speed and applied it to metal’s love of the solo, be it guitar or drum. Thrashers played so blindingly fast that guitarists stood rooted in one spot, for fear of flying off the neck of the guitar. The only motion was from the shoulders up, as guitarists banged heads to the whirlwind of double bass drumming and no-bullshit riffing.

Geezer Butler is the bassist/lyricist for Black Sabbath, Birmingham, England’s finest contribution to the music world. Butler’s seismic bass playing figuratively and literally laid the foundation for heavy metal. Try to imagine a world without Black Sabbath – it’s no world I would want to live in. Butler’s a staunch supporter of Aston Villa Football Club, a vegan and a hell of a nice guy in person. Many years ago, I worked in the same neighborhood that Geezer lived in, and he’d occasionally come into the shop for a quick snack. Always polite, always friendly, he put up with a ridiculous amount of stammering and awkward conversation as I and my co-workers tried to figure out a way to say “You fucking rule!” without sounding like total jackasses. We usually opted for the suave, “You fucking rule, Geezer!” Only once did he come in while we had a Black Sabbath album playing – it was The Mob Rules, the band’s second with vocalist Ronnie James Dio, and a personal favorite (I’ve been through two cassettes and one CD since that day). Geezer just smiled and made no mention of the strange coincidence.

It’s three days later, and I’m still thinking about Hydeware Theatre’s outdoor production of Macbeth. It’s a very good production, a smart and honest production with a few problems – but I don’t know that I did it justice in a short review. A three-actor version of a Shakespearean play is a bold decision – there’s so much that could go wrong, and a poorly-handled production of Shakespeare is excruciating. And there were definitely elements of Richard Strelinger’s direction that gave me pause. Namely, the lackluster fight scenes, and the use of Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” as a soundtrack for the climactic fight between Macduff and Macbeth. RATM is such a cheesy, short-hand version of “angry political band” that the music is actually offensive, and not in an “I’m outraged!” kinda way; it’s more of a “You could cut this suburban angst with a paper knife” kind of eye-rolling outrage.
But that’s such a small, small portion of the evening.

In the summer of 2007, I was an old man of 52. Laughter, hope, joy; these concepts were foreign to me. They had been supplanted by the terms work, duty, obligation; words that taste like ashes and have no happy associations. Adulthood and its attendant responsibilities had rendered the world nothing more than a blurred background mostly ignored while I continued my Sisyphean march towards the next pay check. I had somehow forgotten the glories of youth, and was even on the verge of forgetting that such a time ever occurred in my own life.
But tickling at the back of my brain was a nagging thought, a persistent germ of an idea that roused something other than resignation in me.
August 24, 2007. August 24, 2007. August 24, 2007.

Somewhere out there in the real world, there's a reader who's had a rough year. Took a bad spill on her bike, and had a coffee incident that’d make Juan Valdez shudder. She's banged up, but don't worry, she's on the mend. She has to get back on her feet soon -- her daughter's gettin' hitched in a short while, and mom’s got a seat in the front row. A wedding is something to look forward to, but it also means her only child is growing up a little bit more, and experiencing one of life's singular transformations -- and that's never easy for a parent. It's exhilarating, but it also weighs on a mother’s heart. Sunrise, sunset -- swiftly flow the years, etc, etc.
For that reader, 12 Angry Fingers lays down its sword and offers only flowers.
Oh, and this.

In three short days, Canada's greatest intelligent rock band returns to St. Louis. In honor of yet another visit by Alex, Neil and Geddy, let us turn back the clock to that moment when Rush earned my lifelong admiration and respect and love: The moment when Geddy Lee saved my life.

A recent post on this very blog was found by a certain reader to be insulting to the character of Blackmore. That would be the character of Brythunian Soldier/Thief Blackmore and not his namesake, the English guitarist of great renown, Ritchie Blackmore. The proprietor of 12 Angry Fingers would very much like to take this opportunity to apologize to Certain Reader for the misconception, and would also like to note that this apology is in no way the result of a certain Nordheimer berserker being backstabbed by a Brythunian Soldier/Thief during a particularly frantic moment in the action at this past installment of the Friday Night Role Playing Game Roundtable Argument Society. While it’s true, at the time of the (purely accidental) shivving of the aforementioned Nordheimer berserker (who was indeed a favorite character to play – emphasis on “was”), the other members of the FNRPGRAS were called into duty to separate Certain Reader and the proprietor of 12 Angry Fingers, that was merely the heat of the moment. In the rational light of another day, it is patently obvious that the backstabbing was merely an unfortunate occurrence in the hurly-burly of the fracas, and no ill will was implied or assumed, on either part.
Also, the proprietor of 12 Angry Fingers would like to state, publicly, and also under no duress whatsoever, that “Having entry music for your character is an awesome idea, and forget what I said about it being an egregious anachronism.”
In fact, in a remarkable show of good faith towards our disgruntled comrade, we shall now discuss Ritchie Blackmore’s current project, Blackmore’s Night.

The recent release of re-mastered versions of Deep Purple’s lost albums, Stormbringer, Come Taste the Band and Made In Europe, led to the inevitable Friday Night Role Playing Game Roundtable Argument Society discussion of the big question – who the hell wants those albums on CD? Seriously, right? Those three albums, dating from the Mark III version of the band (Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Glenn Hughes and David “Whitesnake” Coverdale on vocals), haven’t been available as domestic CDs for something like two decades – there’s gotta be a reason for that. It’s a supply and demand economy – and all of Deep Purple Mark II’s albums have remained in print, after all.
Still, a certain member of the FNRPGRAS contingent who shall remain nameless (he knows who he is) is such a devoted Ritchie Blackmore fan that he has not only made a Brythunian Soldier/Thief modeled on Ritchie (cleverly named “Blackmore”) for our Conan: RPG campaign, but this sad little man of course bought the two albums he could find -- Stormbringer and Made in Europe -- and special ordered Come Taste the Band. And to top it all off, he then he insisted on using the live version of “Burn” from Europe as his character’s “entry music,” because being a big dork with a character named after his favorite guitarist is apparently not shame enough.

Out of the blue on a hot-as-the-dog's-balls Wednesday morning, Paul Stanley called. It wasn't entirely unexpected; we did have an interview scheduled for later that afternoon. But something came up on his end, and he wanted to know if we could either move the interview back an hour, or do the interview right then.
Paul Stanley has done about two million interviews in his career, and not only does he still make his own scheduling phone calls, he's willing to work around the interviewer's schedule. It's a nice touch, a personal touch, and if the rest of the celebrity world found out how the big names work, they'd be ashamed of the machinations of their press flacks. Anyway, I of course chose to interview him right then: he's Paul Stanley, and he was nice enough to ring me up.
Despite the high-energy stage persona he's crafted, Stanley on the phone is sedate and laid-back. We discussed art, his philosophy of creating and what, exactly, the critics of the world can suck. He's a thoughtful man, and he took a great deal of care in choosing his words. Regardless of what you think of his art, Stanley obviously finds painting a deeply satisfying pursuit and he takes it seriously. It sounds like Art saved him when he was in a personal low point (I didn't pry when he brought that up, and if you'd heard the delicate path he picked in that part of the conversation, you wouldn't have either), and he's grateful that he has a lifestyle that allows him to paint while the rest of us have to go to work. If Art's not the answer to life's woes, then take it up with Paul Stanley; I'm with him on this one.