Best Music Ever Made - Rock 101

Best In Show

People love lists. They just relish the thought of counting out the top to the bottom or the best of the year. We love to hand out power rankings and I fall into that group with pride.

 Music has always been a contest of biggest selling, highest attendance or loudest amps, and so it should be. Most aficionados will have a favorite song, but that can change more often than a woman’s mind. To give people something to talk about and keep the women out there flip flopping, here we go…..

Best Group In History (Rock  Division)

This is a tough one to say the least, but it is easily transcribed due to the fact that there really hasn’t been much music made since the early 80’s.

1.    Led Zeppelin                                

2.    Pink Floyd                                     

3.    Eagles                                              

4.    Steely Dan                                     

5.    Deep Purple

6.    Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

7.    Rush

8.    AC/DC

9.    Tom Petty

10. Yes

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re muttering. “No Beatles? No Rolling Stones?” I’m sorry, but I consider a lot of the Beatles recordings as pop music. At least the first several years were. The later stuff like the White Album changed things, but a little too late. Can I be as bold as to say the drug use changed them. For the better. Face it, if MTV were around when the Beatles were rollin’, they would have been like Michael Jackson. The Rolling Stones would have the following of Duran Duran.

You have to throw in a few honorable mentions, because the 70’s takes up a lot of space and it is accepted world wide that the 70’s was the greatest decade for music. Plus, I needed more space in my list…

 Honorable Mention

1. Boston
2. Foghat
3. Lynyrd Skynyrd
4. Marshall Tucker Band
5. Van Halen
6. ZZ Top
7. Doobie Brothers
8. The Byrds
9. Allman Brothers Band
10. Grand Funk

                                                           

I am sure a good portion of you are already saying ,“Tim! Buddy! Are you inhaling?”  THIS IS MY LIST. Go get your own damn list.

The next list is Best Guitar Solo’s or just plain old good guitar licks. Through my infinite musical prowess, I have made a management decision that a person or group can make the list even if they do not make the “Best Group” list. Once again, my list. Deal with it…

            

 Best Guitar Solo’s or Riff’s

1.    Stevie Ray Vaughn- “Tightrope”, “Couldn’t Stand the Weather”, plus any other damn thing he played.

2.    Pink Floyd-“Comfortably Numb”- David Gilmour. Not a fast heavy tune, but more of a flowing river.

3.    Eagles- “Hotel California” Joe Walsh and Don Felder. Eagles at their best.

4.    Boston- “Hitch a Ride”-Just take a listen. Pretty good stuff…

5.    Steely Dan-“My Old School”. Not the kind of group you think of for guitar licks, but pretty good stuff, none the less.

6.    Montrose- “Space Station #5- Ronnie Montrose deserves a spot.

7.    Van Halen-“Eruption” and “Unchained” – Eddie’s a man…

8.    AC/DC-“Get It Hot”, “Back In Black”- Early stuff and the later stuff for Angus Young. Malcolm Young deserves a nod too.

9.    Led Zeppelin- “The Ocean, Rock N Roll, Moby Dick, Kashmir” Jimmy Page is so complex. Best stuff was in the studio

10. Almann Brothers Band- “Jessica”, “One Way Out”, “Whipping Post”- Dickie Betts and Duane Almann are southern rock at the top.

Honorable Mention

           1. Foghat- "Stone Blue”

           2. Grand Funk-“American Band

           3. Joe Walsh-“Rocky Mountain Way”

           4. Fabulous Thunderbirds-“Look At That”

           5. ZZ Top-“La Grange”, “Thunderbird”,

6. Crosby, Stills and Nash- “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”

7. Cream-“Sunshine of My Love”

8. Edgar Winter Band-“Frankenstein”

9. Jimmy Hendrix-“Purple Haze”

10. Metallica-“Enter Sandman”

                 

This was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be to put together. I bet I made 20 changes to it in 3-4 different amendments. I would hear a song on the radio or be listen to a song on You-Tube and have to go back and re-arrange. Before I started my list, I bounced ideas and notions off of people. A California friend of mine asked me, “Fabulous Thunderbirds? Who the hell are they?” What do you do with that kind of response.? You enlighten the un-enlightened. A co-worker of mine who is a bit younger than me asked me about Rage Against The Machine. You know hard it is to keep from rolling your eyes at a clearly un-informed and sheltered child of the 90’s?

I am so glad I grew up when I did. Except for disco and new wave (even though some of it was a little bit of a toe-tapper), the music of my peeps was everlasting. We got to hear rock music mold itself to songs that never get old. We witnessed “progressive” and “cosmic” country develop into genres that easily wafted back and forth like that wave of pot smoke that we will never admit to.

I hope these two lists take you back a way’s and inspire you to come up with your own list. Maybe we can have a list of singers, male and/or female or one for each gender. Hey, there’s no rules in this game. No list is 100% accurate and people will find faults. Hey, it’s the American way. Rock on dude.

Okay Jerry. Enough's, enough...

Alright Jerry. Enough’s enough….

Jerry Jones was interviewed a few weeks ago by Bob Costas and asked if he would fire himself as the general manager of the Cowboys. Jerry replied that he was the one that had to look himself in the mirror each day and live with any shortcomings. Apparently Jerry’s vision is a little off or he can’t see through the fog.

The Cowboy’s have become the whipping boy of the NFL. Alright, they’re really not that bad; the problem is they are not that good.  Who else besides me is tired of buying Cowboy gear, supporting Jerry and his overpaid “players”? We buy the t-shirts and shoes. We eat the pizza and drink the soft drinks, but in the end, what do we get in return? The Cowboy’s charge $29.95 to stand in the end zone and $50.00 to park.

Jerry used to come out to the field at the end of the game, glad-handing and slapping people on the back. He thought he was the brains and the reason for the limited success. I’ve noticed lately he don’t come aroun’ no mo’. Heat in the kitchen getting’ a little to hot for you Jerr??? Of course, he’ll blame it on someone else and hire another head coach.  But he won’t fire the general manager. Hell, even George Steinbrenner, the pain in the ass he was, had the smarts to hire someone to run the Yankee’s. 

Unfortunately Jerry Jones is just another example of “Since I got all the money, I got all the answers.” See George Steinbrenner. I’ve seen way to many people like this in my years to buy this act.  Jerry was a big fish in a small pond in his younger days, made a few good business decisions and now he thinks he’s a “football guy.” Bill Parcell’s could have saved this team if Jerry would have let him, but alas, Jerry’s ego took over. How many owners in the NFL have the same problem Jerry has? Ask the Patriot’s and Robert Kraft. Don’t ask the Raiders and the former Al Davis, may he rest in peace. 

Maybe Jerry’s kids (no pun intended, but kind of funny anyway..) will use a more common sense approach when Daddy gives them the keys.  Maybe the mistakes of the past will become the lessons of the future for the Jone’s clan. 

Wow! What A Year!

Wow! What a Year!!

What happened to 2012? One minute I’m in North Texas and the next minute I’m in the California Sierra’s. Life sure can fly by when you blink.

Susie and I started the year with a new job for both of us. Mine was working as an independent rep for the Bo Brown Company and her new occupation was President and CEO of “Moving Tim and Susie to California Inc.” By now (and also unfortunately) we have become pretty damn good at moving, having moved 3 times in about 4 years. It’s funny, (at least to my nimble brain I find the humor), but the stress becomes a little less, the more you do it. Hah. Sucker! It gets worse the older you get! I promised her this was the last time we strike camp and move.

When the offer came along to work for Bo and move back to California, we were both excited and a little apprehensive at first. I had coveted this position several years ago, but I was a little late in my reaction time and I did not want to get my dreams dashed again. When I heard it was open again, I jumped at the chance and everything fell into place for me. I went from a great job with Motomco to a super great job with Bo. I now work California and Arizona representing 8 awesome horse and livestock lines, plus I get to work with some super people.  Being independent and paying my own expenses has had a learning curve to get beyond, but I’m better at it now than I was a year ago. I’ve gone from Hampton Inn to Best Western and Outback to McDonald’s, but being independent is definitely where it’s at.

The weather change was the easiest switch for us. Our first morning back in California greeted us with a 50-degree morning. Toss in a high of 80 and no humidity and I’m a happy camper. I was working around Santa Barbara in July one week and the temperature was in the 60’s during the afternoon. Hard to beat.  The San Joaquin Valley and Fresno area can still get pretty toasty for a few months each year, but at least it’s a dry heat. Ha. It’s still 105 no matter how you slice it. My saving grace is that I get to travel to different areas of the state and get a little bit of a reprieve from the heat during the summer.

One of the great added values to living where we do is the abundance of agriculture. The San Joaquin Valley runs through the middle of the state and grows an overwhelmingly majority of the produce that the US and parts of the world consume. I will never get tired of driving through almond and walnut orchards. The miles and miles of grape vineyards is still amazing to me and driving through roads lined with pistachio and olive tree’s makes me glad we are here. The first time I drove past acres of tomato, artichoke, garlic and lettuce fields, my mind was boggled. It is still hard to believe that these foods being grown in my backyard, will be feeding people thousands of miles away. Even the early morning smell of dairy cow manure wafting through the fog can be refreshing. Well, sort of anyway.  

Living in the Sierra’s is the crown jewel of my existence now. Like Susie say’s, even the view of the mountains from the grocery store parking lot is pretty awesome. I will never tire of driving up the hill from Fresno to Oakhurst on my way home. I seem to decompress as I make the trek home in the afternoon. I guess my fixation with the mountains is pretty well implanted thanks to my Mom and Dad. Mom must have caught the bug when she went to college in Colorado and I think Dad was infected while he interned during and after college. As a youngster, they would always drag us to the mountains for summer vacation. Like most kids of that age, I probably didn’t appreciate my circumstances like I should have, but I think that is where the wanderlust of the mountains began to draw me in. Some would say that I have completely lost my mind, but ever since those days of being surrounded by the pine trees and aspens, I told myself that I would live here one day.  Well, that day is here and we couldn’t be happier.

 Making a move like we have done is challenging to say the least. People are different and attitudes change as much as the geography did. I will never have a true “West Coast Attitude” and my Texas accent is here to stay. As much as I miss Whataburger cheeseburgers and a Taco Cabana carne guisada taco, I am beginning to like In & Out burgers and fish tacos. Who knows, maybe I can change a few of these California nuts minds about barbeque. Stranger things have happened.

John Muir once said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I hope I will live the rest of my days out among these mountains and pines. 

The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor

Why do the good people in the world sometimes have to go through the toughest times? It seems that sometimes the not so good, actually have it pretty good.  Makes me scratch my head and wonder.

Rocky Denard texted me this morning while I was sitting by myself in the Atlanta airport and told me one of our good friends was having a rough go at it with cancer. As we texted back and forth for about 10 minutes, a million memories of Stephenville, Texas and our college days, flooded back to me. I had to bite my lip to keep my eyes from welling up.

Brandon Manning called me a few weeks ago to tell me that Dr. Don Henneke had some pretty wicked cancer (excellent descriptive word from Rocky) to deal with. I was shocked and in disbelief, but I took it in stride. I suppose Rocky’s message hit me a little harder, no offense to Brandon, but I guess the brevity of it all finally hit me. Rocky told me he had visited Doc and he described a man that was a shell of his former self. 

All of us met Dr. Henneke somewhere around 1986 or 1987 while attending Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. “All of us” were a tight-knit group of guys, mainly Ag majors I ran with, trying to find our way in the world. Dr. Henneke, I never could call him Don even though I wanted to, was an equine studies professor who came from the real world. He grew up in the cattle and horse world of Oklahoma and through the years, gathered his BS, MS and PhD from Oklahoma State, LSU and Texas A&M. He had real world, practical knowledge, plus an overwhelming intelligence that he hid from most people. Big and hulking, he had a personality that was intimidating to say the least. He didn’t say much unless he had something that needed to be said, but his words stuck to you like glue. I don’t think I ever had a better teacher. He had a way of putting ideas and information into an “agricultural perspective” that has stayed with me all these years. He used this gift when he was describing a set of mare pens we were repairing. I was learning to weld and my grasp of the art was pretty pathetic. The welds were not neat and straight, but better described as “gorilla welding”. In other words, huge globs of metal and flux that got the job done, but I was using one welding rod per every 2-3 inches. He was inspecting my welding and I meekly told him that I was not very proud of my work. He took a drag off his cigarette, closed one eye so that the drifting smoke would not burn his eye, and encouragingly said, “That’ll work fine. It’s the functionality of it that really matters.”

The first spring that “all of us” took Equine Repro, we spent every weekday afternoon and most Saturday or Sunday mornings, at the Horse Center on the Tarleton college farm. The first time we saw Dr. Henneke palpated a mare, he shocked us all by lubing up his bare arm and inserting it up to the shoulder into the mare’s rectum. The palpation act was not shocking, most of us had seen that before. It was the lack of an OB sleeve that threw us. Palpating a mare is where you feel the mare’s ovaries and determine if she is ready to breed or if she is pregnant. Normal practice except that most people use a plastic OB sleeve to keep their arm clean. Not the Doc. We all kind of raised our eyebrows and looked at each other with a “What the hell?” gesture. After he had palpated the group of mares we had gathered, he went into the barn’s lab and scrubbed his arms and fingernails thoroughly (thank goodness he had good hygiene) and we had to ask the question most of you are thinking now.  We said to him, “Doc, why don’t you use a sleeve to preg test these mares?” He replied in his usual, matter of fact way, “When you use a sleeve, your sense of feel is diminished by a layer of plastic. I just have a better, more accurate touch without the sleeve. Plus, once you go sleeveless, you’ll never go back.”  We would have took Doc more serious, but Steve Adams then made the comment “I bet you have to keep your arms shaved, don’t you Doc? Probably helps keep those little shit balls from rolling up on your arm.”

I loved to hear Dr. Henneke’s stories from the days when he was our age. He was managing a breeding farm in Oklahoma and was showing a breeding stud to some potential clients. Breeding studs can be pretty cagey and mean at times, but this one was at the top of the list. He knew this going in to the pen, but Doc said he let his guard down and let the horse get out of his view for a half second. Before he could react, the stud lunged at him with teeth bared and chomped down on his chest. Luckily it was wintertime and Doc had on a blue-jean jacket and vest, plus a long underwear top and a jean shirt. Doc hollered at the horse in his usual way (he called it his “dog and children” voice) and fought off the old stud horse. Even with all the clothes he was wearing the horse bit through all those layers of clothes and ripped a chunk out of his upper chest that took 6 stiches to close. After he healed up, he installed an electric hot wire around the top of the stud pens to keep the stud horses from fighting with each other, plus to protect people that might get to close to the pens. He had the pens wired up for a few weeks and another client wanted to see the same horse that had bit Doc. He was a little more cautious this time and sure enough, the old stud thought he would have seconds at Dr Henneke’s expense. Doc explained that he maneuvered himself closer and closer to the new hot wire and with eyes in the back of his head waited for the horse to make his move. As the stud started to lunge, Doc said he rammed his fist in the horse’s mouth and grabbed the horse’s tongue. With the other hand, Doc reached up and grabbed the hot wire. Most people would have to really plan this revenge carefully, but Doc’s mind worked a little more different than ours. The jolt of electricity ran from the wire, through Doc’s outreached arm, through his body and hit that sumbitchin’ stud like a ton of lead. Doc said he held on for as long as he could and the stud’s eyes were as big as bowling balls. The horse pulled back and shook his head, did a few jump kicks, farted and ran to the other side of the pen. We were like little kids sittin’ around the campfire telling ghost stories. “How did you not get shocked? we asked. Doc then went on to explain electricity to us and how the stud was grounded and the electricity did not even faze him, only the horse. Doc had reverted to “boring, over-educated Doc” and the shock of it all faded. We looked around at each other and rolled our eyes. But still, you have to admit, true or false, it’s a good story.

Doc had a way of expressing himself with no regard to who was in the room. One time we had a mare that was having difficulty becoming pregnant.  Doc thought we had missed her estrous cycle (again) and he explained to us the art of “teasing” mares. You take a stud horse from mare to mare, mindful that the mare is safe from bites or kicks from the stud horse, and watch how she reacts to the stud. If she is ready for breeding and her estrous cycle is in the correct phase, she generally is permissive to the stud and lets you know. Some mares are very coy and you have to be experienced to catch these little mannerisms. Doc proceeded to explain to our mixed gender class, “Sometimes these mares do all but flip over on their backs to show they are in estrus. But there are those few that will be wearing a low hemmed skirt with the collar buttoned all the way to the top. They play hard to get and won’t let on that they’re in a romantic way, so you have to look for subtle reminders if you want to get them.” Everyone in the classroom, both male and female started nervously looking down at the ground or up at the ceiling after his comments.  Doc just shuffled his papers and went on to the next part of the lecture. Gloria Steinem would have had a field day with those comments.

I was the student manager of the Tarleton Horse Center when I was a junior and I got to know Dr. Henneke very well. We went to several Cutting Horse events at Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft Worth and also went to a couple of horse sales. He never had a whole lot to say to me and he was a little gruff at times, but I soaked up everything I could when I was around him. He taught us to think situations out and use our common sense, but not to forget that science was behind literally everything that happened each day. No other teacher or mentor has ever explained things in that matter. The other students at school, who did not take any classes from him, could never understand why we liked Doc so much. He did his own thing and danced to his own beat. I think that even some of the other professors at Tarleton did not quite know what to think of him. He smoked and smelled of BO and horse dung, but could beat them all with half his brain tied behind his back. I think they all secretly wanted to be just like he him.

The last time I saw Dr. Henneke was about 5 years ago while I was doing my California to Texas commute. I was on one of my two-week trips in Texas and at the time, Stephenville was where I wanted to land once we were re-located. Grat Williams and Brandon were living there and I thought that was where we would set down stakes. I knew Doc drank coffee every morning at the Whataburger in town and I timed my day so that I could catch him there. After about 15 minutes or so, he pulled in with coffee cup in hand. He saw me, gave no expression with his droopy mustache and sad eyes, and walked over to my table to join me. It had been at least 15 years since I had seen him and I always felt like he was disappointed when I left the horse industry to become a salesman. We talked for a good thirty minutes and I told him I was looking for a home in the area. To my surprise, he told me there was a place for sale right down the road from him and I should go check it out. He then told me to stop by the horse center next time I was in town and visit for a bit. There was horse sale benefitting the Tarleton Horse Program and maybe I wanted to help out with the students. I thanked him for the visit and drove off. I never went back to the horse center and I never saw Doc again.

Doc passed away last night. Grat, Brandon and John Jefferies contacted me first thing this morning. I wrote this yesterday when Doc was still with us. It really sucks to have to go back and amend this.  I wish I were back in Stephenville to pay tribute to this great man. This is the second friend/acquaintance of mine to be struck by cancer at too early of an age. Dean Lane was the first and I hoped he would be the last, but cancer shows no remorse or prejudice.  Cancer is a machine and as Doc probably would say, “has great functionality”.  Doc lived a great life in a great industry. He has more friends than he ever realized he had, plus a great family and 2 great kids. Everybody has to die and we all realize that. I just wish that the good people out there were given more time and were able to stick around longer.

 We’re going to miss you Don.

The Long Road Home

It seems that lately I have got into a rut, complaining about rude behavior and such. Kind of like Captain Call in Lonesome Dove; “I just won’t tolerate rude behavior in a man.” I had the mindset to comment on that very subject and a great thing happened. We got a contract to sell our house in Texas.

The last 6 months have been difficult to say the least. Not knowing from week to week and then from month to month, have been tough on Susie and me. I guess I could easily vent about people who drive too slow in the fast lane or kids who have their faces permanently affixed to their cell phones, but I now I have a new outlook. Susie was getting tired of my sour mood also and she is what counts the most in my world.

I accepted a job offer back in November 2011 to move back to California and work as an independent rep for an Ag marketing company. What we thought would take 3 or 4 months max to sell our house, took 6 months.  Traveling via plane and rental car can really tax your commission checks. What’s worse is not knowing from week to week whether this was the week it would all happen. I sucked it up and wrote the checks, but I was really getting stressed, not to mention my most patient boss. He really backed me during this transition and he helped make the whole ordeal bearable.

A week ago we were talking about me getting an apartment in California and living there 3 weeks out of the month and coming home to Texas for a week a month. Two days after we had that painful discussion, we got an offer on the house and within 36 hours we had a contract.  I told Susie I had this premonition or funny itch that wouldn’t go away or whatever synonym you can come up with about divine intervention. I felt that God did not want us to be apart that much. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I still believe. I have my own ways of showing praise and I think it has helped me live a good life.  I’m here to tell you I gave much thanks that day.

Susie and I are geeked (a California term for those that don’t sabe “dude talk”) to get to go back. The mountains of the California Sierra are a sight to see. Oakhurst is small enough to be personal, yet we have all the amenities we need. Fresno is less than an hour away, so we can “go to town for supplies” once a month. We will live 20 minutes from the entrance to Yosemite National Park. Boo yah. That is probably the best part. Every time we visit the park, we see something we didn’t see the last time. I will work about half the state from the Bay area around San Francisco, through the Central Valley over to the Central Coast to southern California, then over to Arizona. Pretty sweet.

People ask me all the time why I want to go back to our part of Cali. Good question. My best response is that I have been there and I have seen. A lot of the negative stereotype about California is way off base. Sure, the tree huggers and liberals are thick, but there are more people like us than you can shake a stick at. I read a book about John Muir, the naturalist, a few months ago. He was from the Midwest and coming to the Sierra’s he saw a majesty that he had to explore and tell the world about. I’m not that much of a nut case, but I see where he was coming from.  

Hopefully we will close on our Texas home and make the move the last week of June. I can’t see us ever forgetting where we came from, but we are damn sure excited to move back home.

Geeked would be a better term.