Days of Lore

One foot in the grave What’s with all the hubbub on birthdays? Not since I was a kid, or turned 18 and 21, has a birthday had any real significance. When you’re young, you get cool toys. At 18, of course, you can vote, and buy lottery tickets and smokes. Twenty-one … well, you get to really go to town on a habit that will most likely last the rest of your life. Cheers!

I’m notorious for not telling anyone it’s my birthday. Why would I? “Hey you, it’s my birthday!” Nope. It usually sneaks out the day of, in casual conversation, often responded to with, “Why didn’t you tell me, you jackass?” Guess I just don’t like drawing attention to myself … if you can believe that.

Math 101 So … another year. I’m still kicking. Life is good. But I’m not going to tell you how old I am. Instead, I’ve assembled a rather crude equation that, if solved, will give you my exact age. It’s like Indiana Jones-meets-Donald in Mathemagic Land.

It’s real simple: Follow the clues and figure out my age. The first person who answers correctly will receive … dun dun dun … the same thing we give everybody: a pair of movie passes. But you have to promise that you won’t waste two hours of precious life watching Norbit or Wild Hogs.

It’ll be fun … and don’t worry, it’s very simple math, since the thought of crunching numbers makes my left arm go numb. Pencils ready? Here goes:

Take a quarter-century, subtract the year Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger album was released, add the Number of the Beast, subtract the address of the CN&R, add Y2K, add the price of a PBR at Duffy’s, subtract the numerical value of MCLV, subtract the title of the popular 1979 movie starring Bo Derek, add the number from the title of Pat Robertson’s conservative Christian television show, make it positive and take the square root, add the age that Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison croaked, and subtract the number of Stooges (hint: Curly, Moe and Larry, not The Stooges with Iggy).

If you took the time to figure it out, you deserve more than a pair of movie tickets. But, not only are you getting a pair of movie tickets, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you are a basic math wiz.

This is only a tribute I see that Zepparella, the all-female tribute to Led Zeppelin, is coming back to Chico for another performance at LaSalles Fri., March 9. I missed them last time, but I heard good things. And even though the band is guilty of having the typically lame bio (“Playing these songs has given us so much as musicians, as performers and as the original band we are becoming.”), I’m going to check them out.

There have been similar bands that have strolled through Chico: Stung (a tribute to The Police), AC/DShe (women rocking the AC/DC), the Atomic Punks (Roth-era Van Halen) and, of course, Larger Than Life (KISS).

Tribute bands are all over the place. And it seems even more bands these days are paying homage to their favorites. I checked out www.tribute-band.com to see what sort of cover bands are out there. Some are obvious. Some are … well, ridiculous.

Some highlights: Minor Earth/Major Sky, a tribute to A-Ha; Petty Larceny, a tribute to Tommy Petty and the Heartbreakers; Justified (Justin Timberlake); El Scorcho (Weezer); Fleetwood to the Max (Fleetwood Mac); Hatful of Hollow (The Smiths); Are Foo for Real, a tribute to the Foo Fighters; and my favorite T&A, a tribute to the Indigo Girls.

There are plenty more where that came from. I’m going to start a band called New 79’s. Think about it. I’m retarded.

God and guns I received a list this week from PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, of books for review—everything from autobiographies and fiction to children’s books and travel.

But one book caught my eye, a book that falls under “true crime,” titled Thank God I Had a Gun. Not only did the title grab me, but the cover is killer. I don’t think I need to say anything except, that kid is going to be fucked up when he gets older.