notmovingpictures Episode 078: My Procrastinating Butt

Recorded on a stormy night, I find myself at a crossroads concerning writing music and making a decision to get this thing rolling. Plus there is some reminiscing about my time in Germany so many years ago.



Opening music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing music: Superchunk - What A Time To Be Alive

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com  Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can be found at www.archive.org. Just sear for notmovingpictures.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

notmovingpictures Episode 064: One Man Chain Gang

Episode 64 finds me reminiscing about my time in training for the U.S. Army and how I ended up being a one man chain gang for my unit for two weeks after graduation. At least I got to go to Germany afterwards.



Opening music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing music: Street Dogs - Back To The World

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com  Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

A Day At The Beach

Contrary to published reports a great white shark did not beach itself in Atlantic City on August 6th. That was just me taking my shirt off to go swimming. Seriously, I don't tan so much as I burn. I'm a mutt who has German, British, Irish, Scottish and even a little bit of American Indian blood in his ancestry but it's the U.K. parts that come to the fore in my physical appearance. I'm pale, hairy and covered in freckles so you can understand why I tend to stay out of the sun. Getting sunburned is never a pleasant experience but on this occasion it was definitely worth it. Besides, the weather was quite nice and there was lots of cloud cover so it turned out to be rather minor which was a pleasant surprise.

Now I can say I get it. I understand the allure of the beach for those that live or grew up near one. Now I'm talking about a real beach here, not one like I've written about going to before with the family that was created at a lake near here. I'm talking about a proper beach at the ocean. My wife is one of those people, she is from Lima, Peru which has a lot of beaches close by. She's told me stories of walking thirty to forty minutes to get to the beach with her brother and cousins when she was young. I never really understood what would draw you to walk that far, to be in the heat, to get sunburned (okay they didn't get burned), to put up with crowds and bugs and everything else that goes with it. Until now that is.

While on vacation visiting my mother-in-law (amongst other relatives) we took a day trip to go to the beach in Atlantic City. I thought it would be nice for my wife since she hasn't been to a beach to swim since she came to the United States over eleven years ago. That's saying something since like I said, she grew up living very near the beach and used to go all the time, especially when she was young. My own experiences with, as I refer to it, a real beach, were confined to a vacation in North Carolina when I was about ten or eleven years old and one in Spain where I was on leave for a week while I was stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army. For the former I was an undersized, scrawny, easily sunburned (yeah I know I'm beating this point to death) and massively insecure kid and for the latter it was winter and the water was freezing cold so I didn't get to swim. In other words, my exposure to the beach was very limited at best.

We met up with a friend of my mother-in-laws who was in from Peru visiting her sons that live in Atlantic City and once together we set off for the beach. I thought I'd swim for about twenty to thirty minutes, get out and cover up while relaxing before getting back in the water for a bit with my shirt on and my bald head covered. That didn't happen. Instead, something wonderful occurred. As I said, the weather was great, lots of clouds, not a lot of the sun beating down on us. After I got in the water and waded out to chest level I really began to enjoy connecting with the water, determining whether to dive under individual waves or float over them. My son was learning to boogie board and he was having a blast. Later he started following my lead as I taught him everything I had just learned. My wife was also enjoying her time in the ocean water once again. We were getting used to the strong pull of the water as in came in and out, from different angles, over and over and over.

Basically I felt the connection to nature. As much joy as I saw on my son's face as the wave caught him on his board and propelled him forward I know it was showing just as much on my face as I went further out and stopped attempting to battle the waves and instead tried to move with them. Now I understood why people want to live so close to the beach, why they want to spend a lot of time there, why they enjoy learning to boogie board or surf. It's a natural thing to want to spend your time and do things there. Now I get it. The joy I felt was worth the fatigue that came from resisting the tide, it was worth getting bitten by flies, worth the fearful shame I had of people seeing my pale, overweight body without a t-shirt on and absolutely, positively worth the sunburn. Nor did I care that I smelled of the ocean when we went to go eat afterwards. None of that mattered because I felt my family and myself  bond with the sea.

If you think I'm being melodramatic for the sake of the story well, you are wrong. If you don't believe me I don't care, you weren't there. I was. I simply advise you to get yourself to a beach and find out for yourself. Make up your own mind with real life experience. With any luck you'll have a similar experience to mine, something to remember and share with your family. Now I want more, I just have to find a way to make it happen more frequently, something not easy in a landlocked state like Oklahoma. It's doable though, now that I get it.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Ten For Tuesday Episode 053

This episode features a mix of new-ish, 90s and then a lot older stuff as well as bands from Germany, Peru, England and the U.S. I'm finally getting around to investigating some cool Peruvian bands that I should have looked into while I was in their home country last summer but unfortunately didn't. Sometimes the internet is a great tool even though I don't hablo mucho espanol. Of course I guess I could always call my brother-in-law and have him go get some of these for me and I probably will end up doing that. I just like being able to listen to something that strikes my interest without having to wait for weeks to do it. Finding music is so much easier than in my youth. Anyway, all of this episodes music is cool. Why? Because I say so and it is my podcast.



Street Dogs - Punk Rock And Roll
Against Me! - High Pressure Low
Sugar - Gift
The Skoidats - Saturday Skins
Dropkick Murphys - Never Alone
Asmereir - Felicidad
Male -Kontrollabschnitt
Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers - Chinese Rock
The Quads - There Must Be Thousands
Rough Francis - Don't Look Back

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.
Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old episodes can be found by searching for Ten For Tuesday at www.archive.org.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

New Podcast Episode - Ten For Tuesday: 80s Metal Rules

Today's episode is in honor of my road trip from this past weekend to go to Kansas City and see Iron Maiden and Megadeth in concert. I had the idea for these bands in an 80s metal themed episode many months back but the time never seemed right. That is until the date of the concert approached and I knew there was no better time to do it. If the ten groups I have seen three of them in concert although only one took place in the 80s. That one would be Judas Priest whom I saw in Boeblingen, Germany at the end of the 80s while serving in the Army. While there I should have also seen Ozzy but for some unknown reason I didn't go and seemingly was on post by myself that night. Such is the stupidity of youth.

Iron Maiden - Wasted Years
Accept - Balls To The Wall
Quiet Riot - Metal Health
Dio - We Rock
Badlands - Highwire
Ozzy Osbourne - Miracle Man
Scorpions - Blackout
Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Going
The Cult - Wildflower
Jetboy - Feel The Shake

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

I'll Eat At A Hole In The Wall Anytime

I've been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain's show No Reservations lately in an effort to try and catch up on the last two seasons. I'd seen some of season seven before but not all of it and none of season eight. Watching the European episodes brought back memories of my two years in Germany from 1988 to 1990 while in the U.S. Army. Mainly it was how Tony likes to go somewhere at the end of a night of drinking and get some food, preferably street food, to "soak up" the alcohol. Back in those days I used to drink but no more. Still, I have a certain amount of fondness for things that happened in those days.

On my first Friday night at my unit I was taken by a team member into Stuttgart from Boeblingen because he wanted to show me the ropes. At the end of the night he decided that before we caught the Bahnhof (think above ground subway) back to Boeblingen he just had to show me a food stand that he said was amazing. The only problem was that he had consumed a large amount of beer and couldn't quite remember where the stand was. We went up one street and down another and eventually we found the stand in question.

At the time for some reason I thought the food was called Hackfleisch and that perhaps it originated from somewhere in the Mediterranean. I was wrong about that. Now I know that Hackfleisch literally means "hack flesh" (the Germans can be so straight forward in their descriptions) which really means chopped meat so I'm not entirely sure what it was that I was eating back then. I am sure however that it was delicious. That was the first of many times that I visited that stand late at night to taste their wares. One bad thing about the night though was that it took so long to find the stand that the last train had left and we had to spend the next four or five hours sleeping on the benches at the Bahnhof station. A small price to pay for the culinary delight I was shown.

My other favorite place to eat was at a stand at the Bahnhof station in Boeblingen that served currywurst. Their version was fairly straight forward. The wurst was cut into small pieces and a sauce comprised of curry and ketchup covered it. It was outstanding! I always made sure that I had room in my belly when I was using the Bahnhof to go into or come from Stuttgart. Once and only once I ordered currywurst at a nicer sit down restaurant thinking that it would at worst be comparable and at best be much better than my beloved version from the Bahnhof booth. I was wrong.

The nice restaurant version was just the wurst cooked with some curry and you had to try and add ketchup to make your own sauce. It just wasn't the same. That experience was one of many that taught me how simple I am when it comes to food. I very much prefer street food or hole-in-the-wall restaurants over fancy gourmet places. As a matter of fact I have no use for gourmet restaurants at all. They just don't appeal to me. Too often they seem to place the look of the food and the ambiance of the experience over the taste of the food. I'm all about the taste, as my belly can attest.

Thinking back it seems to have always been this way. In college my favorite place to eat was Jerry's, a greasy, run down place with cheap food and low prices. In Washington D.C. after a night out there was a hamburger place that my friends and I loved to go to. It didn't look like much on the outside but the waitresses had sharp tongues to go with the great food. Here in Tulsa my favorite Mexican restaurant (Rio Verde) looks like a rundown joint on the outside and that I'd be the only gringo there but once you get inside the food is great and authentic and people from all races can be found.

I guess this all ties into my personality. I just have a preference for the simpler things and could care less for anything flashy. What's most important to me is not outward appearances but what's on the inside. I'm not out to impress anybody, I just feel that the best experiences in life for me are the simple ones and the best food is usually in the least likely places. Give my theory a chance, you might be surprised at what you find.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Time To Admit Who I Am

Okay I'll finally admit it. I am a veteran. There, I said it. It's not that I have been trying to hide the information or am ashamed of my service or anything like that. Quite the contrary, I am proud to have served almost eight full years in the United States Army including the Gulf War. I just don't see a need to advertise it. I've heard people call all service members, especially those who have gone to a war, heroes and I don't agree with that view at all. I was just a guy doing a job. That's as simple as it gets. I never saw combat and never was tested to see if my training would kick in or not. My specialty was personnel records which I ended up knowing quite well.

There was no altruistic thought behind joining nor no patriotic state of mind. Indeed, I simply joined the Army for a job. Tired of living a life that seemed to be going nowhere and not desiring to return to college where I was racking up debt after two and a half years (all without knowing what I wanted to major in) I instead chose to join up and perhaps see a bit of the world if I was lucky. My service first led me to a two year tour of Germany, then on to Ft Hood, Tx and the 1st Cavalry Division which in turn then sent me to Saudi Arabia. After we came back I re-upped for another hitch and went to Washington D.C. to be stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Along the way I had some experiences and met a lot of people, most of whom I've forgotten their names. That's what pictures are for I guess.





I learned a great deal about myself and started my baby steps of getting over my lifelong insecurities which seems to have rapidly accelerated in the last year. Still, there were some hard times mixed in there as well but if I'm being honest even though they sucked they've helped to make me who I am today. When I left the military I never tried to get any benefits nor draw upon what I had done to get anything extra for myself. As a matter of fact it wasn't until this last year before I even went to a local restaurant to get a reduced meal on veteran's day even though by all rights I deserve it. Once in seventeen years. Part of the problem with me was that I always lessened what I had done and been through.

Sure I had served over six months in the Gulf War but not in combat. I wasn't on the front lines but in the rear-division. The only Iraqi's I saw were two prisoners of war at a hospital where I was getting an xray for injuring my ankle in a basketball game. This was after the war was over. I never had to shoot anybody military or civilian, never threw a grenade into a building and never ever saw a scud missile. I was forced to march over to a medical tent and take shots of unknown origin which are not mentioned in my medical records. I did undergo a lot of uncertainty and fear about what could happen if one little thing went wrong on our front lines. There were difficult times spent in crowded tents under bad weather and adverse conditions. Then again, nobody forced me to sign my name on the contract. I just did my job and ended up with a chest full of medals for it.


So while I don't have any combat horror stories I do have stories to tell. You really learn about people (and yourself) when you are forced to live with them in cramped quarters and difficult conditions. Perhaps it's now time to start putting those lessons to good use. As I have stated even though I didn't see combat, even though I wasn't supposed to have my weapon loaded in guard duty (but I did) and even though I didn't shoot to kill (or at all) I can proudly say that I am a veteran. I served my country to the best of my ability and I suffered for some of it.  I just don't see the point going around trying to let everyone know what I've been through and done. After all, I know and I'm the one it matters to the most.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

For The Good Of All

Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking that was partly spurred on by my niece going to Africa on a mission. No, I’m not talking about a Blues Brothers kind of mission. She has a college scholarship through her church that requires her to go on a month long mission every summer. The first year she went to Honduras and last year I believe she went to Germany. This year she is in Zambia, Africa and is working at an orphanage in a small town. Her flight touched down in Johannesburg, South Africa the day after the World Cup final match and the next day she flew on a puddle hopper to Zambia and then took a bus to the town that she will be staying in and now she is more than halfway through her time there. Personally I am quite proud of her for going all over the world to help out in whatever small way she can. She could have easily bowed out and declined the scholarship once she found out the conditions but instead she embraced the challenge of experiencing different cultures and people which a lot of young people will no longer attempt to do these days.

As I thought about that I also thought about a young employee at my job that recently graduated from Tulsa University and has decided that before he settles down into his profession of choice he wants to go to South Korea for a year to teach English. After that initial year he may even go to Argentina for an additional year. His case isn’t necessarily as altruistic as my nieces is but still, the idea of doing something like this at such a young age intrigues me and has had me wondering if I could have done something like this back in the day. I mean, you get to really learn about a culture incredibly different than your own and not in the false touristy kind of way where you never really connect with people on an individual basis.

Sure, I’ve seen different countries and different cultures but that was mostly when I was in the Army and although the slogan always said it wasn’t just a job but an adventure it was usually the other way around. For some reason I feel that it’s not the same but I really have no realistic idea why. I mean, in Germany although I did go to some castles and such I also would go to restaurants, record stores and so forth and try to interact with people. When I went to Spain for a week I have to admit that it was a tourist place and there wasn’t much of an attempt to see the “real” Spain but at least I can say I went there. During the first Gulf War in Saudi Arabia I had a handful of experiences with refugees and workers from other countries (as well as a very brief meeting with 2 Iraqi prisoners of war at a field hospital) but I can’t say I got to know them at all. Then two years ago I was able to go with my wife and our son to her native country of Peru where I did get to meet and interact with people in a real life setting which was very cool.

Regardless of why or where I’ve gone I always attempt to understand that foreign countries are just different and that I can’t compare them to where I am from or what I am used to. I feel that you just have to accept them for the way they are and enjoy the experience. Otherwise, why go in the first place? It seems to me to be pretty silly to go to a foreign country and then only try to be around people from your country that speak your language. For instance, a few years back while mindlessly flipping through tv channels I came across one of those “Judge” shows on which an older couple was suing their travel agent because they didn’t have a good time on their trip to Mexico even though they ignored her advice and told her to book them at a specific resort. One of their prime complaints was that while there they came in contact with too many Mexicans………………… I mean, really? You don’t want to see or hear people from that country? That’s one of the great problems with people from my country. They want to go to foreign lands and see many wondrous and beautiful things but only if the people there can speak English to them and have things done in the (North) American way.

Ah well, since I’ve strayed from my original thoughts I guess it’s as good a time as any to end this meandering and go to bed for the night. Before I know it my son will be waking me up but at least I can go to bed dreaming that perhaps he can one day do good things and learn to accept people and cultures for what they are, not where they are.

World Cup 2010 Germany vs Uruguay and my comments on the lack of good video highlights

I have stopped trying to predict the World Cup okay? After correctly guessing 7 of the final 8 teams I pretty much fell apart after that. Both teams I thought that would make the final (Argentina and Brazil) lost their next game. All 5 teams from South America made it to the final 8 but Uruguay was the only one to make it any deeper and they ended up losing to Germany and placing fourth which for them was completely unexpected. Unfortunately the only video showing highlights that I could find on Youtube was this horrible recording.



The rest of them were made by complete jerks who stated that they had all of the goals but in reality the videos were of everything BUT the game. Later today I'll be watching the final of Spain vs the Netherlands and I think the winner will be.... sorry, but I'm not predicting this game, I'm just going to watch it and enjoy it. Hopefully it will be just as enjoyable as Germany vs Uruguay.

World Cup Quarterfinals

Well, I correctly predicted 2 of the final 4 teams for the World Cup however unfortunately the 2 that I missed were the teams that I thought would be in the final so I guess my predicting skills are not that great. I really thought that Brazil could beat Netherlands and that it wouldn't be very close but I was incredibly wrong. Then I believed that Argentina was too powerful and skilled for Germany and boy did I get that wrong. After Germany scored the 2nd goal it seemed like they gave up and quit and Germany didn't which is why they scored 2 more goals and thoroughly embarrassed Argentina. It was just horrible. I did correctly see Uruguay beating Ghana (thanks to a handball in the goal area) and Spain beating a Paraguay team that has not scored very much. Before anybody goes on about the handball committed by Suarez let me say that 1 game is the appropriate penalty and that if the roles were reversed you had better believe that Ghana (or any other team) would have done the same. The fact is that if Ghana had made the penalty shot it would all be a moot point. But that isn't what happened and Uruguay is moving on. Get over it.

So now I must adjust my predictions and I think that Uruguay will beat the Netherlands and Germany will beat Spain. I hope.

World Cup Quarterfinals results and picks

It seems that I have picked 7 out of 8 of the teams that made it to the World Cup quarterfinals with the only miss being that I picked the U.S. over Ghana. While I thought that they could make it past Ghana I didn't think they would have the firepower to best Uruguay in the next round. Well I was correct about them not having enough firepower but it occured one game sooner than I anticipated. My next picks are Argentina over Germany, Uruguay over Ghana, Brazil over the Netherlands and Spain over Paraguay. Paraguay suffers from the same affliction as the U.S. which is an inability to score. Brazil has too much skill for the Netherlands and I don't think Ghana can stay with Uruguay for an entire match. The biggest question is Germany vs Argentina. They're both very good teams and it could go either way. We'll see if I continue to pick well but at this stage anything is possible.

Drums Are On My Mind, Neil Peart and Sepultura

Okay, I've never been a big Sepultura fan but I have always liked this song even though it's sung in Portuguese and I don't speak the language. No, I've always like it because I think the drumming is very interesting.

Drums

more about "SEPULTURA - Ratamahatta", posted with vodpod

Neil Peart of Canadian greats Rush is by far the best drummer in rock in my opinion. This is only an excerpt of one of his ever changing drum solos. The man has been doing it for so long and it's just incredible to watch him.



Here's a longer solo that he did in 2004 in Frankfurt, Germany. The man is just amazing and as soon as tickets become available I will be buying them to see Rush in concert in Tulsa on September 21st!


Neil Peart Crazy Drum Solo - Click here for more blooper videos