And the Tree Come Tumblin' Down: A photo essay

Text and images (c) Robert Barry Francos

How is this for a koan: If a tree grows in Brooklyn, must it crash in Saskatoon?

When we moved into the house August 1, 2009, there was a beautiful two-trunk Manitoba Maple that spread through the back yard, covering the whole area in shade. A neighbor was concerned that the tree may come down, so we had it checked with a few tree services: Some said the tree may come down, the others (the majority) said it probably had 5 years left. The consensus was to wait a year and then decide.

But the Canadian ice shields and glaciers are melting putting so much more moisture in the air, possibly (probably?) leading to more rain this year in Saskatchewan (recorded) history. The night of May 30 was a doozy. Lightening, thunder, hail the size of quarters, and 3-4 inches of rain in just about an hour and a half.

I woke up on the last day of the month at 5:45 AM, just in time to hear the electricity go off. I thought, "That's not good," and went to look out the back window. The tree had saved us from making the decision and decided to commit hara kiri. It was just one month shy a day that would be a year from the time we moved into the house.

The powerline people were already out in the back yard stringing wire when I got outside 10 minutes later. Seems the tree "went to Jesus" (in the words of Kinky Friedman) at around 3:00 AM, and I slept right through it, including another neighbor ringing the bell. Luckily, they called the power guys and so we were among the first to get serviced.

I called Backwoods Tree Service, and they came the same day and took the tree apart. They did a great job for a reasonable price (yes, this is a plug, as they deserve it). Amazingly, the tree came down right onto the porch without breaking any windows, landed on the roof without tearing it, hit onne eighbor's fence without crushing it, and another's garage roof with only a ding. We were indeed blessed. Meanwhile, anyone want some wood?

Here are some of the images I captured. They can be made larger by clicking on them.

[Before.]

[After.]

[Old view out the back doors, and then the new.]


[An overview of the yard with both trunks down.]

[View of the back porch; note the two chairs and table...the railing is barely visible.]

[The edge of the tree held up by the point of the house. Amazingly, just about no damage.]

[The roots of the tree where it fell over, looking into neighbor's yard (he took down part of his fence for easier clean-up).]

[Leaning on the neighbor's garage, and over our veggie garden.]

[The main branch that was leaning on our porch, obscuring the chair and table.]

[Not only was the tree down over the garden, it was flooded from the rain, as well,more than four inches deep at one point.]

[The flood around the garage next to the garden.]

[The branches on the porch, which amazingly didn't break any of the glass.]

[Backwoods starts in to chopping.]

[Another view of the trucks, and one of the implements that will bring it down.]

[Chopping off the part that was on the edge of our roof.]



[Choppin'!]


[Working off the part that was on the porch and the other neighbor's fence.]

[The part that fell off into the other neighbor's yard.]

[Piece by piece by piece...]

[Long arm of the saw.]


[Whittling it down.]

[Starting on the second trunk over the garden.]







[The "damage" done to the neighbor's garage was merely a scratch.]

[Debris and damage.]



[Most damage to the garden came from falling chunks of trunk as they were cut.]

[Wood chipping the branches. Where's Steve Buschemi?]

[Getting close to the end.]


[Guess the raspberry bushes will have to wait until next year.]

[The trunk wood and larger branches is stacked alongside the cement patio deck (was a kid's basketball court once). Some of the wood was given to neighbors, most we'll convert to firewood.]

[The storm night before that brought it all down.]

Book Review: “33-1/3: Highway to Hell,” by Joe Bonomo

Text © Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet

The 33-1/3: Highway to Hell
By Joe Bonomo
The Continuum International Publishing Group, Inc. (NY / London), 2010
131 pages
Continuumbooks.com

First, some essentials:

This is the third book I’ve had the pleasure to be reviewing by Northern Illinois University prof and music historian, Joe Bonomo. I’d like to digress and give a quick shout out to his previous two (non-fiction) books, SWEAT: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, and Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found. Both are excellent reads, and worth seeking out.

This particular book is number 73 in a series of digest sized books that Continuum Books has issued that focuses on a particular groundbreaking album that had a dramatic effect on culture. A brilliant concept, as each book is decidedly different, with the author given freedom to write about the release from their own perspective, anywhere from a straight bio to an academic polemic, to a personal reflection.

Lastly, as a “truth in publishing” statement, one of my photos appears within its pages (p. 67), and myself and this very blog is quoted extensively at least twice. As there is no such thing as objectivity, and I have no plans in leaning that way, I decided to review the book.

Bonomo has a definite style in his writing that flows in an auteur manner (so far). He is a knowledgeable participant in the history of the groups he documents, and he mixes this considerable information with his own history related to the topic, such as where he was when he first heard the 1979 AC/DC LP that would be a major US breakthrough for the Aussie band, and the last for it’s doomed lead singer, Bon Scott. Bonomo describes how the licentious nature of the music touched his teenage (i.e., horny) psyche, as well as that of the generation.

The Bon Scott period is more remembered fondly as a past moment than it was in the time of its incarnation. With new singer Brian Johnson (who still fronts the band to this day), AC/DC hit their popular stride, and can fill auditoriums across the planet, but it’s the Bon Scott era to which everyone harkens back, and Bonomo places the reader in the time of that slow, upward popularity swing of the band.

What helps make this book special is that Bonomo does not put the band on a pedestal. He looks at the music frankly, and even states which songs on the album are the weakest (and, of course, why they are such). As for Bon himself, Bonomo writes:

I won’t romanticize Bon Scott. I can’t forgive that he was a self-destructive alcoholic who drank himself to death, but I can forgive that unhappy truth, and I listen to the songs that dramatize that hazardous dancer with more than a little sympathy, and with rue at the human mistakes he made, however fun they were.

The book is formally broken into chapters that literally and figuratively mark the three chords that AC/DC relied on so heavily. We are introduced to the rise of the band, the tour before Highway to Hell’s release, the making of the album, the tour after, the effect of the death of Bon on the band and its audience, the rise of their popularity based on this album and subsequent reworking with a new singer (yet keeping their style and mojo going), and the aftermath of a world that has had AC/DC as a paradigm for rocking hard for all these years.

As Bonomo discusses the final product of Highway to Hell, he analyzes each song as he posits what the particular piece denotes and projects, and what it has meant to him over the years, using himself as the representative of his generation. As he describes each cut, I played that particular song, one by one (thank you YouTube), as if he was a tour guide taking me through the highway of AC/DC.

A topic that crops up occasionally in this analysis is one I don’t hear very often, and that is AC/DC’s occasional descriptor as “punk.” This is funny to me, as my Brooklyn crowd always associated them with the likes of the heavy anthem rock of Slade, more than, say, other Aussie punk bands of the time, such as the Saints. Yes, AC/DC were essentially three chords and their songs reveled in the sordid, but even their insisting on keeping their particular brand of rock going (as did the Ramones) gives the application of “punk” as questionable. Heck, Tom Petty’s first album was labeled as “punk” in 1976.

AC/DC is a band whose whole emphasis is fun: drinking, women, and rocking out. Bonomo keeps the flow going from history to analysis to the band as personal touchstone throughout the book, from beginning to end. Whether one is familiar with the band or not (personally, I only own their first LP, High Voltage, which I bought after seeing them play at CBGB in 1977 for $1 in a bargain bin), the story of them is still intriguing as present by Bonomo, who seemingly effortlessly flows through AC/DC’s history, their importance, and their legacy. This was an especially fun read.

DVD Review: The Rolling Stones: Rare and Unseen

Text © Robert Barry Francos/FFanzeen
Images from the Internet

The Rolling Stones: Rare and Unseen
Wienerworld Presentations, 2010
64 minutes, USD $14.95
Wienerworld.com
MVDvisual.com

As is usual with this series, there is only action and dialog, with no music. However, there is a lot going on all the time. Less linear than the one on John Lennon, jumping back and forth in both time and topic, it still remains as relatively comprehensive over the career of the band.

Again, there is nothing about the lads before the band’s formation, nor is there even much about how they got together in the first place, but that’s to be expected. Where it does start is with a humorous quote from Mick Jagger very early on after the band had been together for a couple of years. During a television interview, he pensively states (and this is the opening line of the documentary): “I’ve never thought I’d be doing it for two years even; we’re probably set up for another year.”

The first major clip shown is of Mick being interviewed by Jools Holland (of the band Squeeze) on his The Tube show. This is just the first of many interviews presented, both as individuals and as a group, such as the hilarious questions asked by Ulster Television’s The South Bank Show, where the reporter asks questions about how much money they’ve made and which band is better, the Stones or the Beatles.

There are plenty of shots of the band playing, but always with no music, either overlaid by the sound of radio coverage or a split screen with the band talking on television. In the place of a narrator, there are blue rectangular boxes on the bottom of the screen, filling in what the viewer is looking at, sometimes quite humorously. As for the framework, there seems to be very little thought to chronology given to the clips, sort of like driving a familiar road paying no attention to the yellow line down the center. There are also few temporal descriptors, so events are not well explained or placed in context of the timeline of the band. While this is sometimes frustrating, it can also be said that most die-hard fans know the facts, and are more interested in the rare clips than have the screen filled with redundant (to them) text.

An example of this is the amusing press conference in Russia during the Bridges to Babylon tour in 1998, where it is obvious there is a language barrier that is both funny, and somewhat frustrating to the participants. Another interesting interview is one taken from a 1983 television program where Mick and director Julian Temple are taken to task for the violence in their music video “Undercover of the Night.”

A theme throughout, especially from their early period, is how often the Stones are asked questions on how they compare themselves to the Beatles. They are usually quite diplomatic about it, though it’s obvious Mick is drolly annoyed. Mick, however, is not the only one interviewed, and in fact there is an interesting one-camera Q&A outside a studio with Bill Wyman on the 10th anniversary of his being in the band. He is quite frank and sharp.

There are few details given about the big drug bust of the band, and includes all the same footage one usually sees of them entering and exiting the courthouse both after the arrest itself, the trial, and after the rap-on-the-wrist plea bargain. This is the only time one gets to see Maryanne Faithful and Anita Pallenberg, who go undefined and unexplained. There is, however, a bit more footage of Mick’s marriage to Bianca in 1971 in St. Tropez, where we get to hear Mick speak French. In fact, it’s kind of cool to watch Mick’s accent change over the years, as he starts to drop the faux working class cockney tinge he applied early on.

Speaking of drug busts, there is some coverage of their 1977 Canadian arrest, including the press conference, where Keith Richards looks completely stoned (pun intended).

Jeri Hall makes a very brief (and again, unexplained) appearance at the 2000 opening of the Mick Jagger Centre. Amazingly, there is very little on Brian Jones here, but more focus is placed on some of the other members of the band one usually does not get to see, such as the abovementioned Wyman interview and his live, on-camera resignation from the band in 1993, and some footage of Ronnie Wood’s art show opening at the Drury Lane Theatre.

But the main focus remains on Mick Jagger, with the conclusion of this DVD focusing on Mick’s knighthood, and the band showing up for the opening of Martin Scorcese’s concert film about the Rolling Stones, Shine a Light, which premiered in Berlin in 2008.

While this DVD is somewhat of a mess as far as linearity, the footage shown is accurately described as rare and unseen. I do recommend this more for those somewhat familiar with the band’s history to place the context of the footage, but overall it was an enjoyable ride through the Rolling Stones’ public psyches.